CHAPTER IV PAYNER THE MARPLOT

Owen might have known nothing of all this had Payner not taken a hand in the affair. Two months of Seaton had improved Payner. His mental attitudes were just as twisted and morbid as ever, and his motto seemed still to be "the world against Payner and Payner against the world," but his truculence had modified sufficiently to allow him to reply when addressed, and occasionally to volunteer a civil remark. He disliked the Pecks heartily and with much reason, for the pair showed him little respect, and would sometimes amuse themselves by shouting across the entry to each other a series of questions and answers on the subject of New Mexico which were not entirely flattering to the inhabitants of the territory. Still nothing had as yet occurred which could be counted an overt act of hostility.

[Pg 36]

Payner happened along that morning just as Duncan was leaving the rehabilitated room, receiving as he went, in a curious confusion of shame and complacency, the blessings of the Moons. Payner fumbled long at his lock, screwing his head around over his shoulder so as to take in the whole unusual character of the scene,—unusual because boys are not likely to be profuse in their expressions of gratitude, but especially remarkable in that a Peck seemed to have been engaged in a labor of love.

"Has he been doing something good?" he asked, jerking his thumb in the direction of the door behind which Duncan had just disappeared.

"Well, I guess!" replied Reggie. "He's just straightened us all out. He's a brick! You ought to have seen the pile when we came in. It almost—" The abrupt ending of Reggie's speech was prompted by a side swing of his elder brother's foot. It must not be inferred that this was Clarence's usual method of guiding Reginald's conversation. He had begun with an unheeded nudge. The kick was effectual, but late.

Reggie turned in wonder, and perceived from[Pg 37] Clarence's black looks that he had said something amiss. While he stood gaping in a startled and uncomprehending manner at his brother, Payner left the door which he had succeeded in opening, crossed the entry, and peered into the Moons' room.

"Where's the pile?" he demanded in the rapid, explosive way which the boys liked to mimic. Payner's phrases were jerked out in diminishing puffs, like the irregular snorts of a laboring gasolene engine.

Clarence said nothing, and Payner, turning his back upon him, addressed himself once more to Reggie.

"There isn't any," replied Reggie. "We've taken it all down. It was right there where the table is."

"Been rough-housed, have you?" asked the visitor, wheeling now upon Clarence, and breaking into a most unsympathetic snicker. "Who did it?"

Clarence scowled. "How do you suppose I know? We found it here when we came from Latin, and Duncan Peck has been helping us clear up."

[Pg 38]

"Wasn't the other one with him?"

"No, he had to study," explained Reginald; "but Duncan stayed till the last thing was put away. It was awfully nice of him, wasn't it?"

"How'd they happen to be here?"

"Oh, they came up the same time we did, and we called 'em in."

"They'd been at recitation?" persisted Payner.

"No, at the Gym," growled Clarence, who did not see why he should be questioned in this peremptory fashion.

"They'd been here awhile, too," added Reggie, "but they didn't hear any one come to this room."

"I reckon they could if they'd wanted to," Payner observed dryly.

Reggie did not understand Payner's meaning at all, and Clarence only in part. So they stood for a moment in silence; then Reggie spied Clarence's knotted pajamas in the corner of the sofa and was just opening his mouth to exclaim over them, when Clarence spoke.

"Do you mean to say that they knew when it was done?"

[Pg 39]

"They knew when it was done, and how it was done, and who did it," asserted Payner, boldly. "It's my belief they did it themselves. They're just the fellows to do the thing and then look on and laugh while you grind your teeth. Who else could have done it anyway? I wouldn't, and I couldn't either, as I can prove to you. Owen wouldn't and Smith wouldn't and neither would Lindsay nor any of the other fellows round here. There's only the Pecks left. It's dollars to doughnuts they would and did."

"I won't believe it!" cried Reginald, indignantly.

Payner sniffed. "Then don't. I'll bet all the same you can't find out what they were at all the morning."

Clarence explained the case at length, and Reginald protested, but Payner asserted with undiminished confidence, and departed, leaving behind the memory of various pungent sentiments, such as "they're playing you for suckers," "you'll find out sometime," "you're dead easy for those guys," to work in his absence.

All that afternoon the ferment went on in Clar[Pg 40]ence's mind. He was too indolent to seek facts to inculpate or clear the Pecks, too sensitive to put the experience wholly from his mind as a mishap of the day which he had fortunately survived. Much more distressed by the suspicion that the Pecks were deriding him than by the mere fact of the "rough-housing," he at last decided to lay the matter before an impartial third person.

Late in the evening, when Owen was busy with the last lines of the Virgil for the next morning's eight-o'clock, Clarence offered himself as a caller, bashfully unfolded his tale, and craved an opinion.

The justice heard the case and gave judgment. He liked the Pecks and did not care for Payner. Like Payner, he judged according to previous prejudice. The Pecks were, to his mind, innocent objects of another's malice, and Payner's suspicions wholly groundless. These were not the judge's words, but they represent fairly well his thought. What he said was that Payner was crazy, which in a general way may or may not have been true.

[Pg 41]

Clarence departed with pride soothed and composure restored. Rob, in the firmness of his conviction, hurried over to the Pecks to share with them his laugh over Payner's ridiculous charge. He had hardly broached the subject when he began to question the correctness of his recently delivered opinion. The Pecks looked very indignant and protested very loudly, but the manner of their indignation was so clearly forced and their underlying glee so obvious, that the unguarded wink which Donald threw at his brother and which Rob surprised was hardly necessary to confirm the visitor's growing belief that Payner had been right after all. And how the gentle-mannered twins did malign the insolent Payner for his interference! It was none of his business; he was butting in where he didn't belong; he was a fresh gazabo, an uncivilized cub, an outlaw in disguise, who would wreck a train for a pipe of tobacco or shoot a benefactor from behind a fence; he had probably saved himself from being hanged for horse-stealing by taking refuge in Seaton; he certainly belonged behind the bars.

[Pg 42]

Rob returned to his room with the feeling unpleasantly vivid in his mind that in the matter of the Moons' stacked room he had been guilty of more than one error of judgment.