When Doctor Willard, awakened from sleep by the wild jangling of the bell, drew his dressing-gown about him and looked forth, it was with astonishment and alarm that he beheld a white-robed youth pulling excitedly at the bell-knob. His astonishment was even greater when, having found and adjusted his spectacles, he made out the youth to be Satterlee 2d, who, by every rule of common sense, ought at that moment to be asleep in the dormitory.
“But—but I don’t understand,” faltered the doctor. “Do you mean that you have a gang of burglars locked up in the spring-house?”
“Yes, sir; two, sir; two burglars, sir!”
“Dear me, how alarming! But how——?”
“Don’t you think we could get the police, sir?”
“Um—er—to be sure. The police; yes. Wait where you are.”
The window closed, and presently the tinkle of a telephone bell sounded. A minute or two later and Satterlee 2d, cold and aching, sat before the big stove in the library, while the doctor shook and punched the coals into activity.
“I’ve telephoned for the police,” said the doctor, gazing perplexedly over his spectacles. “And now I would like to know what it all means, my boy.”
“I—I was in the spring-house, sir,” began Satterlee 2d, “when I heard a noise——”
“One moment,” interrupted the doctor. “What were you doing in the spring-house at midnight?”