"Do you still feel in conscience that you can say no more?"

"Yes, Father."

"Very well," replied the priest. After a pause he continued, "I do not want any boy to act dishonorably. But there are certain cases where justice is concerned, where the rights of many are in conflict with those of a few, where scandal is involved, where the instrument for doing substantial good is in danger of being destroyed; under such circ.u.mstances it is not only not dishonorable to speak out, but it is highly honorable to do so. I know a boy's code of honor, and how he regards a 'squealer.' But it is not squealing to denounce a criminal.

And in this case nothing short of a crime has been committed. Wilful damage has been done to property, and consequent damage has been done to reputation. If you saw a boy break into your home, and destroy valuable things, you would not consider it squealing to denounce him to the authorities. That very thing has occurred here. And you are in duty bound to stop sin or crime if it is in your power to do so.

"If you know those who are guilty in this matter, it is your duty to see to it that they declare themselves, in order that the good name of the Club may not suffer further, and that the damage done to property may be made good.

"With this explanation, I again ask those concerned to declare themselves." Not a boy moved.

"Frank Mulvy, after what I have said, do you still find you are not justified in speaking out?"

"I do, Father."

"I respect your conscience, Frank, but I am hard put to find a justification for it. If you were a lawyer or a doctor or a priest, and had got your information in your capacity of adviser, I could see your point of view. But you are a boy of fourteen, and hardly of the age that invites confidence. If I did not know you as well as I do, I should consider you a party to the affair. As it is, you seem to be the only boy who knows anything about the matter, or--the only one who has the courage to say so."

Here d.i.c.k spoke up. "Father, the whole thing has us puzzled. We do not know yet just what you refer to. You speak of damage and rowdyism. We have not seen any. It was only by report that we heard about it and we've got into lots of trouble denying and resenting it. Until your notice was put up today, we treated the entire matter as a calumny. The only row we know of was that sc.r.a.p between Frank and Bill Daly. That was nothing. Frank himself went up to tell you about that. We were all at sea when we saw you so indignant. We formed a committee to wait on you.

As things are it looks bad for Frank. But we all know him and I--I--want to go on record now as standing by him, if he says he can't tell, in honor."

Frank seized his hand. "d.i.c.k, you're true blue."

"That's all right, Richard," said Father Boone slowly, and then, taking Frank by the hand, he added, "Frank, I trust you absolutely."

"Then I am ready for anything, Father."

Gibney now came up rather sheepishly, saying "Mulvy, I hope you'll pardon me."

"Nothing to pardon, old man, you did what any fellow would do," answered Frank. Then he swung around to the crowd quickly. "Fellows, I feel I'm 'in bad.' Everything is against me as things go ordinarily. You have nothing but my word for my defence. I hardly deserve such trust. But I hope you won't regret it."

"Frank, take that notice off the bulletin board and put it on my desk upstairs." As Frank left the room, Father Boone turned to the crowd.

"Boys, a good character is the best thing in life. Frank Mulvy's character alone stands between him and your condemnation. If this matter has no other issue than the present, it is worth while. I could talk on uprightness a month, and it would not impress you as much as what has happened before us."

At this point Frank returned and Tommy spoke up: "Will you tell us, Father, what it is that you are so much worked up over? We don't know what has happened, you know, about breakage and wanton destruction."

"I hope," said the priest, "that every boy here is as you are, Tommy, wholly ignorant of the matter. That only adds to the mystery, for you may as well expect a man to walk without legs as to have a lot of things broken and smashed without arms. Whose were the arms, if not yours of the Club, I'd like to know? I shall describe to you what occurred, and leave the mystery to you."

Then in a few words he told them how he had come to the Club a few mornings ago, and found it all upset, chairs broken, tables overturned, pictures torn down, ink spilled on the floor, and the rest of it. As the narration went on, the eyes of the boys got as big as saucers. If looks and gestures were significant, they told of surprise, disgust, condemnation. As he finished, d.i.c.k spoke:

"Father, that solves one mystery. We could not understand why you withdrew the McCormack treat, and took on so dreadfully. We know, now, and I for one want to beg your pardon for any feeling I had against you."

"Me, too!", "Me, too!", came from different parts of the room.

"That is one cloud rolled away, boys," said the priest. "May it be an augury that the others and bigger ones will vanish also. We are like travelers in the desert who often see things where they do not exist.

Weary and exhausted caravans frequently have visions of trees and springs which lure them on, only to see them vanish in thin air.

Scientists call it a _mirage_. Life, too, has its mirages."

"How strange," said Frank to himself, as they were leaving the room, "Bill and I used the same expression when we were talking together at the hospital."

The boys went home a pensive lot. But everyone of them was determined to solve the mystery.

Chapter V

The Holy Grail

By this time the whole parish knew about the affair at the Club. Like all reports, it increased in the telling until there was the general impression that the Club was a pack of rowdies. Many a father and mother wondered why Father Boone tolerated such an organization.

"I thought these boys were in good keeping," said one mother to another.

"Yes, and it's worse than we know of," replied the other, "for I tried to get at the facts from my Johnnie, but he was as close as a clam.

Unless it was something dreadful, he wouldn't mind telling his mother."

The fact was that the boys had reached an understanding not to talk about the affair at all. They were determined to clear the Club's name and until they had something definite to offer, explanations, they decided, had best be omitted. So 'mum' was the word.

Mrs. Mulvy was returning from early Ma.s.s, that morning, when Mrs. Doyle, a woman she highly regarded, stopped her to say that it was too bad that Frank was mixed up in the row at the Club. Mrs. Mulvy only smiled and remarked that she thought there must be some mistake. But a little later in the day, Mrs. Duffy called on her and after a few conventional remarks, said "I really think it is too bad, Mrs. Mulvy, that those boys should be up to such mischief."

"Why, what do you refer to, Mrs. Duffy?"

"I thought you knew all about it--that wholesale smash-up at the Club.

Surely it was disgraceful. Furniture broken, the pictures and walls disfigured and the whole house ransacked. It's a wonder some of them were not arrested."

This was news to Mrs. Mulvy. She had heard Father Boone call the doings at the Club serious, but she supposed that they were only serious in his eyes, because of the high standard he had set for the boys. Now she heard for the first time of wholesale damage, of wrecked rooms and furniture! "Are you sure of all this?" she inquired.

Mrs. Duffy replied, "It must be so, for everybody is talking about it."

Then she added, "But my boy, George, won't open his mouth about it. It must be bad if he is afraid to let me know. I am going to take him to the priest tonight and find out all about it, and if he had a hand in it--well, he'll wish he hadn't."

Mrs. Mulvy was too confused to speak. She had wondered why Father Boone was so stern when he addressed Frank as "sir." Also she had wondered at Frank's intense emotion on that occasion. "So it was really serious,"

she reflected. "And gossip is getting Frank all mixed up with it!"

Mrs. Duffy continued hesitatingly, "I thought I'd come over to see you first, Mrs. Mulvy, because they all say that Frank is the only one who owned up to knowing anything about it."

Mrs. Mulvy caught her breath. However, she answered, composedly enough, "I should be sorry to know that my boy was really in such awful mischief, but if he was, I am proud that he owned up to it. It is boy-like to get into a sc.r.a.pe, but it is very n.o.ble to stand up and admit it."

"I feel that way myself, Mrs. Mulvy. If George was in it, he will have to own up to it, but I am sorry that he did not do so of his own accord. George is a good boy, though, I never knew him to do anything that I was ashamed of before," said Mrs. Duffy wistfully, as she took her leave. Mrs. Mulvy almost collapsed as she sank into a chair.

For a few moments she was in a state of distraction. At length she sighed, "Poor Frank!" After a while, she arose and went to a little shrine of the Blessed Virgin which she called her oratory. Here it was that the whole family knelt every night to say the rosary together. Here it was that each one said morning prayers before leaving the house for the day's occupations. She had consecrated all her children to the Blessed Mother, and begged her powerful protection for them. The Mother of G.o.d had been a good Mother to her devoted children, and so far Mrs.

Mulvy had realized that devotion to Christ's Mother was one of the greatest safeguards of virtue. She knelt before the image of the Blessed Mother and prayed, "Mother of G.o.d, to whose care I have entrusted the little ones He has given me, be more than ever a Mother to my children now. Especially take under thy protection my good boy Frank. Holy Mary, Mother of G.o.d, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death.

Amen."

When she arose she had decided to make no inquiries of Father Boone, nor would she have any misgivings about her boy. She would trust him.

(II)