"Ouch! it stinks!" yelled Holt.

"So does your reputation," laughed Jack. "One will act as a counter irritant to the other. And like curses like, you know. That's the new school of medicine. Who got up this little scheme to waylay me?"

"Pete Herring," muttered Holt. "I had nothing to do with it. I was just going to catch rabbits."

"With a mask? H'm! you are ashamed to look a rabbit in the face, are you? Well, you are homely enough to give a young rabbit nervous prostration, so I can't blame you for that."

"I didn't have nothing to do with it," said Holt, trying to wipe the mud from his face and making it worse.

"How about the telephone?" asked Jack. "Where was Herring when I called him up?"

"On the switch. How did you know it was him?"

"There are some voices that are so disagreeable that you can actually smell them, Holt. Herring's is one. Then I did not get the station at all? I thought not."

"No, you didn't, but if you knew it was Herring, what did you want to come for? That was foolish."

"Oh, no, it was not. It was foolish for Herring to use the phone and try to disguise his voice. Why didn't he get some one I did not know at all?

He was the foolish one. And then I thought I might give him a dose of his own medicine."

"Huh! did you give him as bad as you gave me?"

"Well, it was different," and Jack laughed.

"I don't treat all alike, you see. Have a little more of the mud cure?"

Then, without waiting for an answer, Jack plastered the bully's face and neck with the sticky mud and left him.

"This is hazing the hazers," he said. "They may not like it, but, then, that is merely the point of view. There is no reason why I should like it any better than they do."

The other bully was sneaking away when Jack found him and he let him go, having really had enough fun with the bullies to last him some time, and considering that he had punished them enough for one while.

"Four to one was pretty good odds," he laughed, "but I had the advantage of knowing what they were about. That was stupid of Herring to get on the wire himself. Why didn't he get some one else? Fellows like these always make some stupid mistake which betrays them."

Jack then returned to the house, where he found Bucephalus washing the wagon with warm water and soap.

"Give me a chance to wash my hands, Bucephalus," he said. "Honest Injun, now, did you know anything about a plan to haze me? That telephone message was all a hoax."

"Wha' yo' mean by dat, sah?" asked Bucephalus. "Wasn' dere no tullyphome message? I done heard it mahse'f, sah, an' Ah done give it to yo' same as Ah heard it m'se'f, sah."

"Then you did not know of any trick to get the best of me?"

"No, sah, 'deed Ah didn't, sah."

The man spoke so earnestly that Jack was convinced that he was telling the truth and believed him.

When he had finished washing his hands, he went to the doctor's study, where he found the princ.i.p.al himself, and asked permission to use the telephone.

Finding the number of the station below, which was not the one given to him, he called up Mr. Jones and asked if there was any package for him.

The agent said that there was not, and the boy then knew that the whole affair had been a hoax and that probably Bucephalus was as innocent of it as the station agent himself.

"They must have come in here when the doctor was out, switched the barn line on to this one, and taken my call without Jones knowing anything about it," he said as he hung up the receiver and went out. "It was a pretty good plot, but one little blunder will spoil the best of plots."

He said nothing to Percival nor any of his new friends about the matter, being satisfied to have gotten the best of his enemies without publishing it, and feeling that he would be safe from further annoyance for a time at least.

It was said at the supper table that Holt and Haddon were sick from eating too much, and that Merritt had fallen into the brook and taken cold, and Jack did not take the trouble to correct the rumors.

Herring was there, looking as well dressed and conceited as usual, and probably he had more ways of getting over his troubles than the others had, for he showed no effects of the hazing.

He glared at Jack in a manner that promised future trouble, but the boy paid no attention to it, and did not mention the affair to any of his friends, although he knew that they would have liked well enough to hear of it.

CHAPTER VI

BILLY'S LITTLE JOKE

Billy Manners still had an idea of playing some sort of a joke upon Jack Sheldon, albeit a good-natured one, and not the kind that Herring and boys of that ilk would be likely to perpetrate.

Now Billy knew nothing of the hazing that Herring had intended to give Jack, for the latter had not mentioned it, and as a natural consequence Herring himself, in view of his failure, had said nothing about it to any one, not even his own cronies.

The bullies of the Academy never had much to say to the better cla.s.s of boys in any event, and in this particular case Billy would not be apt to hear of the affair of the unsuccessful hazing, Herring and the rest naturally keeping their own counsel.

Consequently Billy knew nothing about it, but had an idea of his own and determined to work it entirely upon his own responsibility without taking any of the other boys into his confidence.

He was a pretty good hand at working a joke, and knew that sometimes, particularly in carrying out a practical joke, too many cooks spoil the broth, although there is another aphorism which declares that in a mult.i.tude of councillors there is wisdom.

However, Billy concluded to try the first old saw in working out his plans, and the reader can judge for himself by the sequel whether he took the wisest course or not.

After supper, when the boys were all supposed to be in the general schoolroom, Billy got a chance to go up to the dormitories in order to prepare for the little joke upon Jack.

The beds were all iron, with woven wire mattresses such as are used in hospitals and preferable as being much more sanitary than the ordinary wooden beds with slats of the same material.

Billy's idea was to loosen the side supports in such a manner that it would not be obvious that anything had been done to them, but that the bed would collapse as soon as any weight was put upon it and let the occupant down upon the floor in the most summary fashion.

What he did was to lift up the sides and then to fasten them to the head and foot pieces with very thin cord which was sufficient to hold them in place only as long as there was no weight put upon them.

The instant that any one got upon the bed the side pieces would drop to the floor and the occupant would go down with them, much to his astonishment and the delight of the other boys.

Having fixed up his little trap, Billy replaced the clothes in as neat a fashion as a chambermaid could have done, and there was apparently nothing the matter with Jack's bed.

"That will be one on Master Jack for the ducking I got the other night,"

he said, and then he moved the washstand near enough to the bed so that in the event of the latter's collapsing it would go down as well.

Satisfied with his work, he left the dormitory and returned to the big schoolroom, his absence having caused no comment apparently, and his presence and operations upstairs not having been noticed.