"None of that!" Joe exclaimed quickly. "I'm not an insurgent. I play with the regulars or not at all. They'd be saying all sorts of things against me if you and I tried to start an opposition team."

"That's so. Still it mightn't be a bad idea, under the circ.u.mstances, to have another team, if it wasn't for what the school would say."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, Excelsior got dumped in the interscholastic league last season.

They play for the blue banner you know--a sort of prize trophy--and it was won by Morningside Academy, which now holds it. That's why I say it might be a good thing to have some more ginger in the team here. I know you could put it in, after the way you pitched on the Silver Stars when they licked the Resolutes."

"Well, it can't be done I'm afraid," Joe rejoined. "There can only be one first team in a school, and I don't want to disrupt things or play second fiddle. If I can't get on the nine I'll have to stay off, that's all. But it's going to be mighty tough to sit still and watch the other fellows play, and all the while just itching to get hold of the ball--mighty tough," and Joe gazed abstractedly about the room.

"I wish I could help you, old man, but I can't," said Tom. "I suppose this clash with Hiram had to come but I do wish it had held off until after the season opened. Once you were on the nine you could show the fellows what stuff you had in your pitching arm, and then Hiram and Luke could do their worst, but they couldn't get you off the team."

"That's nice of you to say, but I don't know about it," remarked Joe.

"Well, I'm about done studying. I wish----"

But he did not finish the sentence, for there came a knock on the door--a pre-arranged signal in a certain code of raps, showing that one of their cla.s.smates stood without.

"Wait a minute," called Tom, as he went to open the door.

His quick view through the crack showed the smiling faces of Teeter and Peaches, and there was an audible sigh of relief from Joe's roommate.

For Tom had fallen behind in his studies of late, and had been warned that any infractions of the rules might mean his suspension for a week or two.

"Gee, you took long enough to open the door," complained Teeter, "especially considering what we have with us."

"Don't you mean 'whom' you have with you?" asked Joe, nodding toward Peaches.

"No, I mean 'what,'" insisted Teeter with a grin as he unb.u.t.toned his coat and brought into view several pies, and a couple of packages done up in paper.

"Oh, that's the game, is it?" asked Joe with a laugh.

"And there's more to it," added Peaches, as he produced two bottles from the legs of his trousers. "This is the best strawberry pop that can be bought. We'll have a feast as is a feast; eh, fellows?"

"Lock the door!" exclaimed Tom, and he did it himself, being nearest to it. "There may be confiscating spirits abroad in the land to-night."

"Old Sixteen is abroad, anyhow," spoke Teeter with a laugh, "but I guess we'll be safe. I have a scheme, if worst comes to worst."

"What is it?" asked Joe.

"You'll see when the time comes--if it does. 'Now, on with the dance--let joy be unconfined!' Open the pop, Peaches, and don't sample it until we're all ready. Got any gla.s.ses, you fellows? This is a return game for the treat you gave us the other night."

"Then we'll find the gla.s.ses all right," spoke Joe with a laugh. "But what's your game, not to let old Sixteen catch us at this forbidden midnight feast? Have you dummies in your beds?"

"Not a dum. But watch my smoke."

From the parcels he carried, Teeter produced what looked to be books--books, as attested by the words on their covers--books dealing with Latin, and the science of physics.

"There are our plates," he said as he laid the books down on the table.

Then Joe and Tom saw that the books were merely covers pasted over a sort of box into which a whole pie could easily be put. "Catch the idea," went on Teeter. "We are eating in here, which is against the rules, worse luck. But, perchance, some monitor or professor knocks unexpectedly. Do we have to hustle and scramble to conceal our refreshments? Answer--we do not. What do we do?"

"Answer," broke in Peaches. "We merely slip our pie or sandwiches or whatever it happens to be, inside our 'books,' and go right on studying.

Catch on?"

"I should say we did!" exclaimed Joe. "That's great!"

"But what about the bottles of strawberry pop?" asked Tom. "We can't hide them in the fake books."

"No, I've another scheme for that," went on Teeter. "Show 'em, Peaches."

Thereupon Peaches proceeded to extract the corks from the bottles of liquid refreshment. From the packages Teeter had brought he took some other corks. They had gla.s.s tubes through them, two tubes for each cork.

And on one tube in each cork was a small rubber hose.

"There!" exclaimed Teeter as Peaches put the odd corks in the bottles.

"We can pour out the pop with neatness and dispatch into our gla.s.ses and at the same time, should any one unexpectedly enter, why--we are only conducting an experiment in generating oxygen or hydrogen gas. The bottles are the retorts, and we can pretend our gla.s.ses are to receive the gas. How's that?"

"All to the horse radish!" cried Joe in delight.

"Then proceed," ordered Teeter with a laugh; and when all was in readiness each lad sat with a fake book near him, into which he could slip his piece of pie at a moment's warning, while on the table stood the bottles of pop with the tubes and hose extending from their corks--truly a most scientific-looking array of flasks and gla.s.sware.

"Now let's talk," suggested Teeter, biting generously into a pie. "That was a great fight we had to-day, all right."

"And there might have been one of a different kind," added Peaches.

"Hear anything more from Hiram, Joe?"

"No, I don't expect to--until the next time, and then I suppose we'll have it out."

"I guess Joe's goose is cooked as far as getting on the nine is concerned," ventured Tom.

"Sure thing," agreed Peaches.

"Yet we're going to need a new pitcher," went on Teeter. "Probably two of 'em?"

"How's that?" asked Tom interestedly.

"Why Rutherford, our star man of last year, graduated, and he's gone to Princeton or Yale. Madison, the subst.i.tute who was pretty good in a pinch game, graduated, too; but we thought he was coming back for an extra course in Latin. I heard to-day that he isn't, and so that means we'll have to have two new box-men. There might be a show for Joe."

"Forget it!" advised Peaches. "Not the way Hiram and Luke feel. They went off by themselves right after supper to-night, and I heard them saying something about Joe here, but I couldn't catch what it was. Oh, they're down on him all right, for Joe backed Hiram to a standstill to-day, and that hasn't happened to the bully in a blue moon."

"Oh, well, I guess I can live if I don't get on the nine my first season here," spoke Joe. "I'll keep on trying though."

Thus the talk went on, chiefly about baseball, and gradually the strawberry pop was lowered in the bottles, and the pie was nearly consumed.

"Guess you had all your trouble for nothing, Teeter," remarked Tom. "We aren't going to be interrupted to-night."

Hardly had he spoken than there was the faint rattle of the door k.n.o.b.

It was as if some one had tried it to see if the portal was unlocked before knocking. Slight as the noise was, the lads heard it.

"Quick! On the job!" whispered Teeter. He crammed the rest of his pie into the fake book, as did the others.