"You'll stay in after school," commanded Crabtree, majestically.
The accusation, and the fact that he had to stay in when the others were allowed to go out and have their fun, did not suit The Imp at all. While he sat in the classroom all alone, he thought again of something that had come into his mind before.
"I'll do it!" he said firmly. "I'll do it to-night! I'll show him that he can't accuse me for nothing."
Since the fall term at Putnam Hall had opened Josiah Crabtree had been making frequent trips to Ithaca, to a well-known dentist located in that city. Although many of the cadets did not know it, a few, and among them Pepper, were aware that the teacher was having a new set of false teeth made. Now the teeth were finished, and Josiah Crabtree was wearing them with great satisfaction and not a little pride. He fancied that the new teeth added not a little to his personal appearance.
It was Pepper's plan to get hold of these teeth and hide them. How the trick was to be accomplished he did not yet know, but he resolved to watch his chances.
That evening, as luck would have it, Josiah Crabtree retired early. As was his custom, he placed his false teeth in a glass of water on a stand in his room. Watching through a keyhole, Pepper saw him do this, and then calmly waited for the teacher to go bed and fall asleep.
The door was locked, but The Imp was equal to the emergency. The room next to that occupied by Crabtree was vacant, and he entered this and threw open the window. The window of the teacher's apartment was less than three feet away, and the sash was pulled down a few inches to let in fresh air.
Pepper was not such an acrobat as Andy, but he quickly raised the next window and moved into the teacher's apartment. In a trice he had secured the new set of teeth, and then he retired as quickly as he had come, leaving both windows as he had found them.
"Now what shall I do with the teeth?" the cadet asked himself. He was strongly tempted to tell Jack and Andy of the trick, but decided to keep the matter to himself.
At last another idea came into The Imp's head and after everybody had apparently gone to bed he stole downstairs and entered the assembly room of the school. He had previously tied the set of teeth to a bit of fishing line having a sinker at the other end. He now took aim at the central chandelier and by good luck sent the sinker and line whirling around one of the pendants, leaving the set of teeth dangling below a foot or more.