CHAPTER XXVI
UNCLAIMED TOP-STRINGS
With a sinking heart, Jack often called to mind that this was his last term at school. The little money that his father had left was not enough to warrant his continuing; he must now do something for his own support. He resolved, therefore, to make the most of his time under Mr. Williams.
When Pewee, Riley, and Ben Berry got through with their punishment, they sought some way of revenging themselves on the master for punishing them, and on Jack for doing better than they had done, and thus escaping punishment. It was a sore thing with them that Jack had led all the school his way, so that, instead of the whole herd following King Pewee and Prime Minister Riley into rebellion, they now “knuckled down to the master,” as Riley called it, under the lead of Jack, and they even dared to laugh slyly at the inseparable “triplets.”
The first aim of Pewee and company was to get the better of the master. They boasted to Jack and Bob that they would fix Mr. Williams some time, and gave out to the other boys that they knew where the master spent his evenings, and they knew how to fix him.
When Jack heard of this, he understood it. The teacher had a habit of spending an evening, now and then, at Dr. Lanham’s, and the boys no doubt intended to play a prank on him in going or coming. There being now no moonlight, the village streets were very dark, and there was every opportunity for a trick. Riley’s father’s house stood next on the street to Dr. Lanham’s; the lots were divided by an alley. This gave the triplets a good chance to carry out their designs.
But Bob Holliday and Jack, good friends to the teacher, thought that it would be fun to watch the conspirators and defeat them. So, when they saw Mr. Williams going to Dr. Lanham’s, they stationed themselves in the dark alley on the side of the street opposite to Riley’s and took observations. Mr. Williams had a habit of leaving Dr. Lanham’s at exactly nine o’clock, and so, just before nine, the three came out of Riley’s yard, and proceeded in the darkness to the fence of Lanham’s dooryard.
Getting the trunk of one of the large shade-trees between him and the plotters, Jack crept up close enough to guess what they were doing and to overhear their conversation. Then he came back to Bob.
“They are tying a string across the sidewalk on Lanham’s side of the alley, I believe,” whispered Jack, “so as to throw Mr. Williams head foremost into that mud-hole at the mouth of the alley.”