"I'm backing my feelings."
"You'll bet on it?"
"As much as you want."
The scornful Egghead, thus provoked, offered ten to one against him. Hickey accepted at once.
During the day the news spread and the bets came flying in. As to his plans, Hickey preserved a cloaked mystery, promising only that the feat should take place within the fortnight.
Each night toward midnight, he slipped out of Sawtelle's window (Sawtelle being sworn to deadly secrecy). He remained out an hour, sometimes two, and came back sleepy and chuckling. About this time the report began to spread that burglars were in the vicinity.
The Gutter Pup, who roomed on the first floor of the Woodhull, took a solemn oath that having been waked up by a strange scratching noise at his window, he had seen four masked figures with bull's-eye lanterns scurrying away. The next report came from Davis with added picturesqueness. The school became wrought up to an extraordinary pitch of excitement in which even the masters joined after a period of incredulity.
When the proper stage of frenzy arrived, Hickey took into his confidence a dozen allies.
At exactly two o'clock on a moonless night, Beauty Sawtelle, waiting, watch in hand, gave a horrid shriek and sent a baseball bat crashing through his window, where he afterward swore four masked faces had glared in on him. At the same time the Egghead raised his window and emptied a revolver into the air, shouting: