CHAPTER V.
THE NIGHT-HAWKS.
Mr. Shell was proprietor of the New Hope Oyster Saloon. He got up nice game suppers, and treated his customers to ale, whiskey, and brandy. Philip loved good living, and often ate an oyster-stew and a broiled quail, and washed it down with a glass of ale, late at night in Mr. Shell's rooms, in company with three or four other boys. After supper they had cigars and a game of cards, till midnight, when Mr. Shell put out his lights and closed his doors, often interrupting them in the middle of a game. That was not agreeable, and so the young gentlemen hired a room over the saloon, fitted it up with tables and chairs, and organized a club, calling themselves "Night-Hawks." Philip was the chief hawk. They met nearly every evening. No one could get into their room without giving a signal to those within, and they had a secret sign by which they knew each other in the dark.
At first they enjoyed themselves, playing cards, smoking cigars, drinking ale, sipping hot whiskey punch, and telling stories; but in a short time the stories were not worth laughing at, the games of cards were the same thing over and over, and they wanted something more exciting.
It was the fall of the year. There was rich fruit in the orchards and gardens of New Hope, russet and crimson-cheeked apples, golden-hued pears, luscious grapes purpling in the October sun, and juicy melons. The bee-hives were heavy with honey, and the bees were still at work, gathering new sweets from the late blooming flowers. Many baskets of ripe apples and choicest pears, many a bunch of grapes, with melons, found their way up the narrow stairs to the room of the Night-Hawks. There was a pleasing excitement in gathering the apples and pears under the windows of the unsuspecting people fast asleep, or in plucking the grapes from garden trellises at midnight. But people began to keep watch.
"We must throw them off our track. I'll make them think that Paul does it," said Philip to himself one day. He had not forgotten the night of Daphne's party,—how Paul had won a victory and he had suffered defeat. Paul was respected; he was the leader of the choir, and was getting on in the world. "I'll fix him!" said he.
The next morning, when Mr. Leatherby kindled the fire in his shoe-shop, he found that the stove would not draw. The smoke, instead of going up the funnel, poured into the room, and the fire, instead of roaring and blazing, smouldered a few moments and finally died out. He kindled it again, opened the windows to let in the air, but it would not burn. He got down on his knees and blew till he was out of breath, got his eyes filled with smoke, which made the tears roll down his cheeks. The shop was a mere box of a building, with a low roof; so he climbed up and looked into the chimney and found it stuffed with newspapers. Pulling them out, he saw a crumpled piece of writing-paper. He smoothed it out. "Ah! what is this?" said he; and, putting on his spectacles, he read, "North 69° East, 140 rods to a stake; South 87° West, 50 rods to an oak-tree."
"That is Paul Parker's figuring, I reckon. I always knew that Paul loved fun, but I didn't think he would do this!" said Mr. Leatherby to himself, more in sorrow than in anger.