"Oh, everybody knows something about it," returned Laughlin, with a grin. "I suppose he was after material. What number has he reached now?"
"I think he's getting ready for Number Six," said Simmons, gravely. "He didn't say what it was to be, but he told me all sorts of things he might do. If he does everything he talks about he'll have to put them three at a time to keep within ten. He showed me where he got the newts he put in the clothes-bag, and where he used to catch turtles and water-snakes, and the old stumps where he dug out salamanders. He says that below the falls, on Salt River, you can catch all sorts of things when the tide's out—dip up young eels by the pailful. They'd do to put in the water pitchers."
"I shouldn't care for them in mine," observed Laughlin.
"When it gets warmer there are going to be more things," Simmons continued, growing more confidential and serious as he proceeded. "All sorts of bugs, for example, and hornets' nests that you can take off in the night and throw in through the windows. It's easy to get half a pint of ants from any big ant hill if you only know how, and the brown-tail moth caterpillars they talk so much about—the hairs fly and are poisonous, you know—it wouldn't be at all hard to find a nest with the caterpillars just in the right stage outside the town somewhere. Then he took me into his room and showed me an enormous spider he had in a bottle—he got it from home—and asked me how I thought the Pecks would like it to find such a thing in their pajamas some night. Isn't it awful!"
Simmons stopped for breath, and looked horror-struck from face to face.
"What's it all for, anyway?" asked Laughlin.
"Why, the Pecks ripped up his room, and spoiled some of his specimens," explained Rob. "He wants them to apologize and agree to let him alone. They won't do it."
"Oh, I remember now," Laughlin said. "One of them came to me about a month ago, and asked me what to do. I gave him a raking down for playing such fool tricks, and told him to go and apologize and try to patch it up with Payner. I don't know which it was. I never could tell 'em apart."
"It was Duncan," said Owen. "I gave him the same advice. He's willing to do the right thing, but the other one keeps him back."