“Beansey” came in with measured step and walked slowly through the dormitory. His sharp eyes took in everything, but there was nothing to awaken distrust, even in his suspicious soul. All the boys were busily engaged in getting ready for bed, and frequent yawns seemed to indicate that they would be only too glad to get there.
As the door closed behind him, there was a smothered chuckle of exultation.
“He won’t be round now for another hour,” said Tom, “and what we can do in an hour will be plenty.”
“You bet!” said Bill Garwood. “Just watch our smoke.”
They slipped the bolt on the door to avoid a sudden surprise. Then they dragged the clothing and mattress off one of the beds, and made a table of the springs. On this they piled, indiscriminately, the things brought from the wardrobe, gloating over the evidence of Ned’s generous provision for the “inner man.”
“Say!” exclaimed Fred, “why didn’t you clean out the whole store while you were about it?”
“Some feast,” commented Melvin. “Cheese and pickles and sardines, and pies and chocolates, and ginger ale and soda water, and cake and jelly, and grapes and—”
“Shut up, Mel, and get busy, or you’ll get left,” said Slim, as he speared a bunch of sardines, an example which the rest needed no urging to follow.
The various good things disappeared like magic before the onslaught of ten hungry boys, and one would have thought, to see them eat, that they had just been rescued after days in an open boat without food or water. And not till the last crumb had disappeared did they lie back in all sorts of lazy attitudes, like so many young anacondas gorged to the limit.
“That old Roman, Lucullus, or whatever his name was, who used to give those feasts, didn’t have anything on you, Ned,” said Tom. “You’ve got him skinned to death.”