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"Awe, see here, Mr. Beach, any boy that would play such a trick as that ought to be packed out of school. I move you, sir, that it is the sense of the First Latin – "

But Beach is in no mood for trifling. Bang! comes the heavy ruler on the desk. "To your seat!" he orders. "Ten marks off for Turner," and the class subsides, while John speeds away to borrow the bell from the shop below, and the master mentally calls the roll. "One absentee, Hoover," he notes; instantly calls Bertram to his feet and begins the work of the day. Poor work it proves to be, for between yesterday's fire and the morning's tidings the First Latin has neglected its studies. Poorer it proves after ten o'clock, at which hour a policeman appears at the door and asks for the rector. Poorer still after a recess at twelve, at which time Mr. Hoover himself drives up in his carriage, Halsey comes down to meet him, and together they drive away. At any other time the fact that Halsey was away from his post at the reassembly after recess would lead to a riot, but the sight of the face of Hoover, pater, is more than enough for the class. "He looks like a ghost," says Bliss. "What's coming next?"

Nothing came – ahead of the Doctor. At the usual moment he appeared, and as usual levelled his stick at the boy at the foot. "No message – telegraphic?" he asked of Beach, after brief glance at the missives on his desk. A shake of the head, an inaudible "no" framed by the lips were the answers. A look of grave concern spread over the Doctor's face. He glanced at his watch, turned to the window, then back to the door, for the rustle of skirts, most unusual sound, could be heard on the stairs. Another moment and there entered Mrs. Park, George Lawton's mother. She reached the chair the Doctor promptly placed for her, sank into it, limp and despairing, and burst into tears. "Doctor, Doctor!" she wailed. "My boy has not been near Bridgeport. I couldn't find a trace of him – or of any one who knew anything about him."

CHAPTER XIII

There was a change in the composition of the First Latin when the Christmas holidays came on, and the erstwhile "band of brothers" broke up for a fortnight of frolic at home. Hoover had not reappeared at school at all. He had been sent South to visit relatives in Mobile "for the benefit of his health," the rector said to the class, but there was no twinkle of merriment in his eye as he spoke, and no responsive laugh along the line of young faces. Strange interviews had occurred between the Doctor, Joy, and Julian, from which "the senate" came forth with sealed lips. Long conferences had taken place between the Doctor, Halsey, and Beach, and twice had Briggs been bidden to stay after school. "They wanted me to tell on lots of you fellows," was his explanation to the class. "Pop and Halsey tried to get me to tell where you spent your time and your money out of school, and threatened to dismiss me if I didn't." But the First Latin answered unanimously that Briggs was a liar. All the same they did wish they knew what was really the matter with Hoover. There was one lad who could have given a new direction to their theories had he not promised both the Doctor and Halsey to say nothing whatever about that ten-dollar gold piece, and a hard time he had keeping his word, and that was Shorty. Neither from the Doctor nor any one, until long after, did he learn nor did the school know that at least one hundred dollars had disappeared from the drawer of the Doctor's desk the eventful morning of the fire. Yet what made it strange was that rumors of such a thing had been heard, and they came from outside the school. Columbia students heard it whispered at Martigny's. Martigny himself admitted, when cornered, that he had had an interview with the rector at the residence of a gentleman in Madison Avenue, by request, but he would say no more. One thing was certain. None of the Hulker set reappeared at Martigny's. Another thing was announced, that Mrs. Hulker, who for the years that followed her husband's death had followed his example and consulted Hoover senior in all her investments, etc., had turned against that substantial citizen and was filling the ears of society with tales of his treachery, tales to which Mrs. Lawrence and her coterie listened with bated breath. Then, as has been said, the Hulker boys, too, went South, "visiting relatives in Savannah," and the widow followed a fortnight later. Ten days before Christmas, the so-called Hulker gang was without head, foot, or finances, both Hulker and Hoover having disappeared. There were "no more cakes and ale," no more cigars and tobacco for the few hangers-on about the quarters of Metamora Hose. But, after all, the matter over which Pop's boys talked and wondered most was: Where was Snipe Lawton and why did nothing further come from him?

There was a mystery about the letter that had taken Shorty up to the Doctor's early that December morning and sent an eager, anxious, loving-hearted woman out on the New Haven Railway by the noon train. It had come by post to Shorty just as he was starting for school, and he had run first to the Lawrences' and then, after five minutes' eager, excited talk with Mrs. Park, nearly all the way to Murray Hill, and caught the Doctor on his customary tramp to college before he reached the reservoir. It was only a little note. It said that Snipe had been ill of some kind of fever, that he had found work and was feeling independent and happy, hoping soon to make enough to send five dollars to Seymour, when he was taken ill. Snipe thought he "must have been flighty a few days," but people had been very kind to him. He had helped two boys – his employer's sons – with their arithmetic every night until his prostration, and it had pleased their mother and father both, but he had let out something about his own mother, and now they were telling him how cruel he had been to her and how he ought to go back to her and put an end to her suffering. Snipe said he couldn't go back to Rhinebeck and wouldn't go back to Aunt Lawrence, but if Shorty would send the enclosed note to his mother she would know that he loved her and thought of her constantly; and then he asked Shorty to write to him how the boys were and whether they missed him, and what Seymour said. "Address your letter care Massasoit House, Bridgeport, and I'll get it safely, only don't tell anybody." And, instead of writing, Shorty had run to Pop and Pop had turned back with him, had sent notes by him to Mrs. Park and to Halsey, bidding the latter give Shorty whole holiday, which, to the astonishment of the school, he had declined.

"Why did you do that?" Halsey had asked him during their memorable conference after the discovery of the gold in his overcoat-pocket, and Halsey was thinking how, unconsciously, the boy was weaving a strong thread in the net of suspicion that would have been thrown about him but for the lucky accident of the afternoon. "Beyond all question," said Halsey to himself and to the Doctor, "it was the intention of the thief to cast suspicion on Prime and divert it from himself," and there were just three lads, so far as Halsey could figure, who besides "Loquax" were in the room during his few minutes' absence, and had opportunity to rob that till, – Briggs, Hoover, and the janitor. The later discovery of the gold at Martigny's narrowed the number to Briggs and Hoover, with the chances in favor of the latter. And all these facts combined had led to that solemn conference between the Doctor and Hoover senior, and, despite all his protests of innocence, to the withdrawal of the ill-favored and unfortunate young fellow from the school. There was to be no scandal, – no allegation of crime. Pop would have dropped a thousand dollars rather than have it openly said that such things had happened among his boys. His own suspicions for months past had centred on his hulking, clumsy janitor, and for weeks the detectives had dogged and dogged in vain. What confounded and troubled the Doctor was young Hoover's vehement and persistent denial of guilt, and Hoover senior's prompt assertion that on the Saturday afternoon previous to quarter day, when giving his son the check for his school bill, he had also given him twenty-five dollars in gold and silver to pay certain debts the young man had confessed to him, and he was certain there were two ten-dollar pieces in the lot.

Those were solemn days for the elder Hoover and rueful days for the son. There were conferences, crossexaminations, and almost inquisitions at the solemn old mansion, Pop, Halsey, Martigny (most unwillingly), and Beach taking part. But the boy stood firm to his first statement. He had had no more money from any source than that twenty-five dollars. He long refused to say what he had done with it, as only a little silver remained, but at last owned that he had given the two tens "for safe-keeping" to the elder of the Hulker brothers as they stood there by the hose carriage. There was an unsettled account between them, covering only a few dollars, Hoover claimed, but the Hulkers said a great deal more, and while they were trying to straighten it out the Doctor swooped down on him and bore him away. This, if true, would account for the money Hulker gave Martigny. But who took the money from the Doctor's drawer? Who put that ten-dollar piece in Shorty's overcoat-pocket? Why didn't Shorty wish to take the whole holiday with the other boys as proffered by the Doctor? Halsey had to ask him, and it was plain the little fellow hated to answer, but answer he did. He was being educated at the expense of his relatives. They had made occasional criticism of the Doctor's proclivity as to half-holidays, and when this quarter day came Shorty had been not unkindly told that the money expended in payment for those school bills was for his instruction, not his amusement, that Saturday and Sunday were holidays enough in the week, and, finally, that he should have his check on Wednesday, and meantime they expected him to attend school.

One more question had Halsey to ask, and over it the youngster pondered long, though he answered instantly. "It was not four minutes – not much more than three – between the time you came in and the moment of the announcement of the fire. Was there no sign of it when you crossed Twenty-fifth Street? Didn't you know that the alarm would be given in a minute?"

"No, sir, there wasn't a sign or a sound of it on the avenue; besides, I came through Twenty-fourth Street, from the direction of the Lawrences';" and that ended Halsey's cross-examination. To clinch matters, he had taken Shorty with him, as has been told, and questioned a fireman of 61 Hose, then sent him home for dry clothing, happy in the importance of having held 28's pipe a whole half-hour, and hungry as a bear. Small wonder that the family decided after dinner that evening that it was time to call a halt on this craze for running to fires on the part of their junior member. But events were looming up that were soon to spare them further care in that direction.

What the First Latin and Pop and Halsey and Beach now longed to know, however, was, where was Snipe, and why had Mrs. Park failed in her mission? The rector and his head-master had now good reason to know that whether Lawton had anything to do with the disappearance of Joy's watch (which none of them could really believe), he was not the only thief in the school, for the loss of the hundred dollars long after his disappearance conclusively settled that. There were now not more than half a dozen lads who believed that Snipe was dishonest to the extent of stealing a watch, not more than a dozen who doubted his integrity at all, and as for his saying in his letter that he could be reached through the Massasoit at Bridgeport, there were theories in abundance to explain the fact that neither in person nor by letter had Snipe "reported." He never said where he had found work; he had not given the address of his benefactors; he still, it seemed, dreaded that his step-father would enforce his return to a life that was torment to a boy of his character and spirit. He had merely told Shorty that a letter addressed care of the Massasoit, Bridgeport, would reach him; and, learning this through the admissions wrung from his sorely badgered "chum," and never waiting to write, the impulsive woman had gone at once in person, and the Massasoit people knew nothing whatever of the son. No one answering his description had been there, and as for letters being sent in care of the house, they showed her a bundle of missives so addressed. Every day guests would arrive, register, ask if letters had come for them, ransack the packet, select their own, and toss the others back. Some they showed her had been waiting a month for claimants. If she were to leave a letter addressed in their care for her son and if he were to call for it, they would telegraph to her, but that was all they could promise, and, after consulting the city authorities and, of course, the minister of the church to whose doctrines she had pinned her faith, and all without hearing of a lad who in the least resembled her George, the sad-hearted woman had gone miserably back to Gotham and to Pop.

Then, of course, she wrote, and so did Shorty. Both letters begged Snipe to return, but by this time Mr. Park himself had come to New York to persuade his wife to go back to her home and to promise that he himself would seek and find the wandering boy and fetch him to her arms, – the worst piece of strategy that could have been adopted, as Shorty, boy that he was, could have told her and would have told Park. Left to his mother and to his chum, the lad's heart might have relented and his stubborn pride dissolved, but there are men sublimely gifted with the faith that they alone are competent to deal with affairs, either public or personal, – that without their aid and guidance everything is sure to go amiss. Park sped away to the Massasoit on the heels of the letters, and when George Lawton drove in with the hope of finding the longed-for messages from home, and went from the stable where they had put up the sleigh straight and eager to the Massasoit, there, with his back to the huge, red-hot stove and facing the office desk, as though to guard that package of letters, there, grim, unbending, repellent as ever, stood George Lawton's step-father, and the lad, scenting treachery, turned and fled.

When the school assembled for the eventful year of '61, the First Latin found itself reduced to twenty-five. Hoover, it was announced, would spend some months in Mobile with a private tutor and rejoin after Easter. From Snipe Lawton there came neither message, missive, nor token. A rumor flew from lip to lip one April morning that a lad answering every description of the missing boy had fallen from the steps of a New Haven train through a gap between the beams of the Harlem bridge and was lost in the murky waters. The brakeman who saw the accident was well known to members of the school who lived at New Rochelle, and so impressed the Doctor with his story that reward was offered for the body, and men dragged the river for several days. "What you need," said one of the wiseacres of the First Latin, "is to fire cannon over the stream, and that'll bring him up if anything will," and the words were recalled when, within another day, the guns of Sumter boomed from shore to shore, rousing a nation from its lethargy, bringing many a man and boy to vivid life and action such as they had never known or dreamed before.

CHAPTER XIV

The great city had gone wild. Not a month before many of Pop's boys had ridiculed the lads of a rival school who had employed a drill-master from the Ninth Regiment and met two evenings a week. But Shorty, after vainly trying to start a rival company among his own mates, had gone over and enlisted in the ranks at Mulholland's. As a drum-boy he was not allowed to handle a musket and "fall in" with the famous regiment to which he was attached. Indeed, he would have had to stand on a step-ladder to load "according to tactics" the long, glistening musket with which the troops were at that time armed. Mulholland's boys had hired a lot of old-fashioned cadet musquetoons, heavy and cumbrous, but they were marvellous weapons in the eyes of the lads. Officers on duty at Governor's Island were frequent visitors at the Primes' at Fourteenth Street, and Shorty could not but hear of the preparations at the arsenal, the effort to send reinforcements and provisions to Major Anderson at Fort Sumter. All the world knew at this time how the "Star of the West" was fired on and forced to put back to sea, but still not one man in five would admit there should be war, and, in the great Democratic community, hundreds and hundreds of people and not a few papers almost openly took sides with the South. Two lads at Pop's actually came to school wearing the colors of South Carolina in their waistcoats, and in the First Latin the Ballous, whose father had embarked his capital in steamships trading with Charleston and Savannah, and Seymour, whose relatives were nearly all Southern, and the Graysons, who were Northerners by birth, but had many kindred in Virginia and Alabama, were all openly "secesh" in their talk. And still lessons went on, and the boys even had time to talk of Snipe and wish him back, and of Hoover and wish him in Jericho. Long ere this, now that there were two absent and Briggs had not a friend or a believer left in the school, all the First Latin had swung round into the conviction that poor Snipe was the victim of circumstances and conspiracy, and that Hoover was the cause of all his woes. The story of the hundred-dollar stealing had begun to be accepted as a fact, though Pop and his assistants could never be got to admit it. The further fact that Hoover and those notorious scamps, the Hulkers, had not been seen in New York since the Christmas holidays had set afloat a story that they had been discovered to be connected in many a piece of rascality. Everything missing at school for over a year was now attributed to Hoover. He had been able, said the boys, to dispose of his plunder through those Hulker fellows, who, despite the money lavished on them by their foolish mother, had debts in many a bar-, billiard-, and pool-room, and were known to have pawned valuable jewelry from time to time. She was with them somewhere in the South, and the gloomy old house in Twenty-first Street was cared for by the servants, who were glad enough to have their young masters away and suspicion attaching to themselves at last removed. But still that watch of Joy's and certain valuables of Aunt Lawrence's remained unaccounted for. Still the police were baffled. Still there came no news as to Snipe's whereabouts, and his mother, deeply distressed, had gone home to Rhinebeck and had to be content with receiving once a month a few lines saying her boy was well, working, and would return to her one of these days when he had earned enough to make him independent. Those letters bore only the date, which often differed by three days from that of the post-mark, but the post-mark helped them not at all. One letter was posted in New York, another in Boston, a third in Philadelphia. It was evident that Snipe was determined to give his step-father no further chance to find him. Once he wrote to Shorty, upbraiding him gently for being instrumental in putting "old Park" on his track, but that was all. Shorty felt it keenly, but with that poor mother and the Doctor and his home people all importuning him and telling him what was his duty, the boy had weakened and given the clue, with the result that they had gained nothing and he had lost his friend. There was little comfort in the assertions of the one whom he referred to as his "Sunday-school aunt," that he ought to be thankful to be rid of so undutiful and undesirable a companion. Shorty, to use the vernacular of the day, "couldn't see it," and fell from grace for saying so. But now the thrilling days of suspense were on the nation, and, while everybody who knew the South knew well the South meant fight, the baa lambs of the pulpit and the braying leaders of the press kept on preaching about the ties of brotherly love, the right of the people to assemble peaceably ("even when under arms"), and the wrong of interference or intimidation, so "Let the erring sisters go in peace." As late as the 8th of April, one night when the boys were drilling in the big gymnasium on the upper floor of Mulholland's school, and quite a number of people were looking on, a venerable patron of the school stepped forward during the rest and proceeded to address them.

"Cease all this waste of time, boys. Put away your cruel weapons. Abandon this senseless strutting and marching. War is a relic of the dark ages, – of barbarism. The world has grown wise with years, and of the enlightened nations of the earth America stands foremost. Trust to the broad views of our statesmen and the good sense of the people. They will ever stand between us and the horrors of a civil war."

There was much applause among certain mothers and sisters sitting along among the spectators, but Mulholland and the boys did not join. It was significant of what the drill sergeant thought that the moment the handclapping subsided he commanded attention and then "Fix bayonet!" Within the week that followed, the broad views of many a Southern statesman were manifest in the shotted guns trained on Sumter. The good sense of the people, so far from "standing between us and the horrors of civil war," boiled over in a genuine Anglo-Saxon exuberance of battle fervor. The news that the stars and stripes were lowered in Charleston Harbor sent them to the peak of every staff throughout the North, and men, women, and children swarmed upon the streets, decked with the badges of red, white, and blue. All Gotham had caught the war fever. The President's call for the services of the State militia to defend the capital until the volunteers could be enrolled sent the Sixth Massachusetts through the city the very next morning, the famous New York Seventh following by special train late the following day, and the Eighth Massachusetts marched down Fifth Avenue the same evening the Seventh went away. The best blood and brawn of the metropolis and of the Bay State were the first to respond. The Sixty-ninth, Seventy-first, and Seventy-ninth, Irish, American, and Scotch regiments of the great city, followed within the week, the jaunty Frenchmen of the Fifty-fifth, the Grays of the Eighth, the Blues of the Twelfth were promptly under arms. Every able-bodied man of the tribe of Prime was in uniform and away to the front before the month of May was ushered in, and Shorty, with breaking heart, had shut himself in his room and sobbed himself sick because he was forbidden to even think of going. He listened to the thrilling strains of the Seventh's splendid band until the last sound of their favorite "Skyrockets" was drowned in the hoarse cheers of the crowds that saw them off. He went to school as ordered and got "flunked" in every lesson. He sat on the mourners' bench in utter misery and despond all through the week that followed the going of the city troops, after having deliberately absented himself from every session during which a regiment happened to be marching away, and in all the two weeks that followed the coming of the news from Sumter only once had there come into his life a moment of joy and comfort, and that was the day following the departure of the Seventy-first (red-jacketed drum corps and all, – all except poor Shorty), when, as the First Latin bustled out into the street at recess, and Shorty, last of all, came drearily down with his hands in his pockets, ordered out, in fact, by Mr. Beach, he was greeted on the sidewalk by a jeering laugh and Briggs's taunting, sneering words. "Hullo, drummer! So you thought you'd better stay home where there wasn't going to be any show of fighting, did you?" and Briggs might have known what would happen. Just as before, in a sudden whirl of fury, the youngster flew at him, landed both fists on the freckled "mug" before Briggs could either dodge or guard; bore him backward in the full force of the instant attack; the carroty head banged on the curb and knocked him stupid, and then the peace-makers really might have been less deliberate in pulling Shorty off. Briggs was a wreck when his raging assailant was dragged away, and Halsey, wild-eyed, came rushing out to stop the fray. "Prime, Prime!" he said, as he held him by the collar. "You've tried the rector's patience to the utmost this last week, and I fear this will end it all."

"I don't care if it does!" panted Shorty. "I'd rather be killed than kept here any longer. I hope he will expel me. Then perhaps they'll let me go where I belong!" And in a torrent of wrath the youngster's swelling heart burst over all bounds, and he was led sobbing away.

Still dazed, half blind, and bleeding, Briggs was lifted to his feet. "It served you right, you hulking coward," said Joy, as he and Bertram led the battered object to the horse-trough in the stable. "You couldn't have insulted him more brutally."

"It's of no use," said the Doctor that evening, gravely, to a gray-haired grandsire, who was himself burning with longing to go to the front. "That boy can't study now. You see he was regularly enlisted as a drummer. He fully believed that when his regiment was called out that nothing could keep him back, and, boy-like, he has said so among his fellows, – probably bragged of it a little. He who had been so boastfully confident now has to stay and face the sneers of the school, while big boys of eighteen and nineteen like Dix and Julian have gone with the Seventh. It breaks his heart, my friend. There's no likelihood of fighting just now. The rebels won't be fools enough to attack Washington. Send him down there to his uncle. Let him have a taste of camp life. The city troops will come home as soon as the volunteers begin to arrive. In fact, if you don't there'll be incessant war right here at school."

"But there's his examination for college," said the head of the Primes, himself a don of Columbia.

"Well, didn't you assure Dix and Julian that Columbia would admit them without examination whenever they knocked at the doors? Didn't you at faculty meeting say that three seniors, who never could have got their diplomas in the world, should have their degrees without further question, despite the fact that they have dragged along at the foot of their class for the last two years, all just because of the fact that they have gone to the front with their regiments?"

"But then he's so small for his years," was the next objection.

"All the better soldier! Those big, long giants break down. Those stocky little fellows are the stayers. Besides," says Pop, with a twinkle in his eyes, "size doesn't seem to count for much. You – ought to have seen Briggs."

"Was he well pounded?" asked the head of the house, with interest ill becoming his years and station. Perhaps he is thinking of old, old days at "Harrow on the Hill," when he, too, had been under the ban for more than one forbidden fight.

"Halsey says he looked as though he'd been mauled by a wildcat;" and to save his reputation the Doctor cannot repress a grim smile.

"The young rascal!" says the head of the house.

Shorty, meantime, remanded to his room to cool off and meditate on his sins, has done neither. The drum which was his joy and the jaunty uniform are gone. To his unspeakable grief, there had come an order for them from the adjutant the day before the regiment marched. Another boy had been accepted in his place, a bigger boy, who could hardly squeeze into either jacket or trousers, but, of course, did not return them. They were regimental property, and yet Shorty felt a sense of personal indignity that, even when he couldn't go, the adjutant should permit any other one to take his place. Of his misery when, clinging to his perch on a lamp-post above the cheering throngs, he saw those twenty red-jacketed lads, led by the drum-major, coming proudly trudging down Broadway at the head of the splendid command, it would be impossible to tell; and now, twitted and insulted at school because he was bound to obey the decree of his grandparents, virtually suspended for resenting the insult, and, last of all, practically a prisoner in his room, poor Shorty's cup was full.

There came a step in the hallway without, a knock at the door, and the butler's boy, a stanch friend, ally, and fellow-fireman, stood and waited. There was no answer, and he stooped and hailed through the keyhole.

"Mr. Shorty, father sent me up with some dinner, – and there's a letter, looks like Mr. Snipe's writin'."

The door flew open and the letter was seized.

"Dear Shorty," it read, – "I used to think nothing would ever make me a soldier any more than nothing could keep you from being one, but here I am, high private in the rear rank, and as big if not as broad as the rest of 'em. I swore I was eighteen and over. I have the height and looked strong. They wanted to fill the company up to a hundred, and there was no further question. Fancy my delight when we went into camp next your regiment and my surprise when I couldn't find you among the drum-boys. Billy Archer says you nearly went crazy when they came away without you. What's the matter? You are coming, aren't you? I saw your Uncle Hal in his captain's uniform yesterday, and stood up and saluted with the rest. I shan't tell you my regiment or address this time, though Park couldn't take me away from Uncle Sam even if he did come. But when you get here hunt up Billy Archer, and he'll tell you where to find your old chum.

"Snipe."

That night, late, it occurred to some one that it might be well to go up and see Shorty and try to reason with him and comfort him, or "do something," as it was vaguely expressed. The room door was wide open, the dinner stood untasted on the tray, the tray was on the bed, and Shorty was gone.