“Ah! more of his deviltry, eh?”
“I’ll read you Miss Virgene’s letter.” And taking it from his pocket, Mark read aloud as follows:
“My Dear Mark: A letter from me will doubtless surprise you, but I write for Silly Sam, who is not gifted with a superior style of penmanship.
“Let me first tell you that all at Spook Hall jogs on in the same easy way, and I am still under your sweet mother’s kind charge, though I am spending Sunday, to-day, at home with father, so I can send no message from your mother, and, in fact, my letter to you is a secret known only to the writer, Silly Sam, and the recipient.
“Now to Sam’s letter. He begs me to say to you that he is in the employ of Merchant Clemmons, and that the other day, when asleep in the little room adjoining the office, Mr. Clemmons came in, accompanied by a young man whom he had met at his door.
“Sam did not make his presence known, and through the door, he being back in the dark, he saw that the young man presented a very seedy, dissipated look, but had a very defiant air.
“Then, as near as I could get it from Sam, the young man demanded money from the merchant, and was refused.
“Then he told him that he would go to the Naval Academy, where he had been a cadet, and make a clean breast of it to the commandant that his son, Scott Clemmons, had led him into a plot against you.
“Scott had paid him well for his services, said services being to persecute you in any way in his power, to cause you demerit marks, and that Scott Clemmons had arranged a plan by which you should be found with a gold fifty-dollar coin, which he, Clemmons, had pretended was stolen from him.
“The plot did not turn out a success, as you had thwarted him in some way, and he had been dismissed from the academy.