“If you break it you’ll pay for it!” gasped Alvin. “And I’ll fix you, Crail!”
“You couldn’t fix—a ham sandwich,” grunted Monty contemptuously. “Let go, I tell you! There!” The piccolo was wrenched free and Alvin staggered against the table. Monty strode to a window in the alcove, thrust it up and hurled the instrument far into the darkness. When he turned back Alvin was still leaning against the table, nursing a wrenched wrist in silence. But the expression on his face was so utterly malignant that Monty marveled. “Sorry, Standart,” he said, “but I had to do it. Hope I didn’t hurt you.”
“It’s all right,” replied the other after a moment in expressionless tones. “You warned me, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And I warned you, didn’t I?”
“Warned me? What about?”
But Alvin made no answer. Instead, he began to undress silently. Monty gathered the bedclothes up and restored them to some order and once more retired. But he was not easy in his mind. Standart could make trouble for him if he wanted to. Perhaps he had been foolish to increase the other’s enmity. If Standart took that story to the faculty—but, snakes, he wouldn’t dare to! Anyway, what was done was done and meanwhile he was horribly sleepy, and——
Monty’s gentle snores were heard before Alvin was ready for bed, and the latter, reaching to turn out the light, paused in the act and looked gloatingly across at the slumbering form of his roommate.
“Just wait!” he muttered. “Just wait, Crail!”