"I'll tell you. When we got home he took me into his room to show me a new specimen. Then he asked me what the Pecks were going to do about the plagues, and I told him that there wasn't any change so far as I'd heard. At that he looked fierce, and said they'd get the full number then; they'd better look out, for he'd put them to the bad before he got through with them. Then he asked me if I didn't want to see what the next one was going to be. I said Yes, and he unlocked the closet door and let me look in. What do you think I saw?"
Simmons paused and gazed at Owen with big, horrified eyes.
"Well, what was it?" demanded the ball player. "I'm not going to guess through the whole zoölogy. Spit it out, can't you?"
"In the back of the closet was a kind of wire-levered box like a big rat trap, and in the box was an awfully big, shiny, black snake, all coiled up!"
"Dead?" asked Owen.
"Alive!"
"How did you know?"
"I saw it move its head, and the eyes shone, and there was food for it sticking through the wires."
"That's about the limit!" exclaimed Rob. "What then?"