"Do you really think so?" asked Purcell.
"It's one of the surest things conceivable," railed Ripley. "That bright constellation of freshmen known under the musical title of Dick & Co. will solve the whole affair wit, in forty-eight hours. Indeed, I'm not sure but Dick & Co., even at this moment, carry the secret looked in their breasts."
Fred glanced quickly around him to see how much of a laugh this had started. To his chagrin he found his bantering had fallen flat.
"Oh, well," gaped Dowdell, gazing out of the window near which he stood, "I know one important fact about the mystery."
"What's that?" asked half a dozen quickly.
"None of the five hundred is destined to come my way.
"That jest saddens a lot of us with the same conviction," muttered
Ted Butler, shaking his head.
"But this I do know," continued Dowdell, "if the weather continues cold there'll be some elegant skating before the week is out."
Gridley did not slumber over the nitroglycerine mystery. Len
Spencer, though he could gain no actual information, managed to
have something interesting on the subject in each morning's "Blade."
The people of Gridley talked of the mystery everywhere.
There was one other mild sensation this week that lasted for a part of a day. Tip Scammon came up for his trial. He pleaded guilty to the thefts from the High School locker room, and also guilty to the charge of entering the Prescott rooms in order to hide his loot in Dick's trunk. By way of leniency toward a first offender the court let Tip off with a sentence of fourteen months in the penitentiary. This sentence, by good behavior on the part of Tip, would shrink to ten months of actual imprisonment.