THE SPOILED BOOK
The children put their books away thankfully and trooped out into the yard. Miss Mason, after putting up every window, as was her custom, went across the hall to the teachers’ room.
Tim Roon was so busy dusting off the top of his desk and fastening down his papers so that the wind would not blow them away that he was the last pupil left in the room when Miss Mason went out, closing the door behind her. Tim waited till he was sure she was not coming back, then tiptoed hastily up to her desk.
“I’ll show her!” he muttered, tumbling books and papers about till he found what he wanted.
It was the illustrated and autographed book of verses. And now if any one had been there to see Tim they would have been astonished at what he did next. Reaching down into a kind of cabinet that formed the lower part of Miss Mason’s desk, Tim brought up a tall bottle of 74 ink from which the desk inkwells were filled. He took the stopper out and opened the book.
“What you doing?” asked a voice at his elbow.
Tim’s conscience was guilty enough, dear knows, so it was no wonder that he jumped. A thick stream of ink spurted out and ran down the crevice of the binding of the book. Tim closed it quickly.
“Gee, Charlie Black! you scared me,” Tim said, relieved to find that the voice belonged to his chum. “What am I doing? You just watch me!”
Tim opened the book again and poured out more ink. Then he closed it and pressed down hard on the covers. He did this several times, each inking making an ugly, blurry figure that completely ruined two or three pages of the book.
“What’s that for?” demanded Charlie.