Andy at Yale: Or, The Great Quadrangle MysteryStokes, Roy Eliot
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Andy at Yale: Or, The Great Quadrangle Mystery
Stokes, Roy Eliot
College students -- Juvenile fiction; Yale University -- Juvenile fiction
"Caught me! What do you mean?" asked the unfortunate lad excitedly.
"Can't I come to your room to borrow a book without being jumped on as
if I----"
"Exactly! As though you were the thief that you are!" said Andy,
bitterly. "What does this mean?"
With a quick motion, letting go of one of Mortimer's wrists, Andy
reached into the other's pocket and pulled out the bills. "They're
marked with our initials," he said, and his voice was sad, rather than
triumphant. "We left them there to see if you'd take them."
The production of the bills took all the fight out of Mortimer
Gaffington. He ceased his struggling and sank limply into a chair which
Dunk pushed forward for him.
There followed a moment of silence--a silence that neither Andy or Dunk
ever forgot. The quadrangle thief moistened his dry lips once or twice
and then said hoarsely:
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"That's the question," spoke Andy, wearily. "What _are_ we going to
do about it?"
"Are you going to deny it?" asked Dunk. "Before you answer, think what
it means. An innocent man is under charges for these thefts."
Mortimer did not answer for a moment. When he did speak it was to say:
"No, I'm going to deny nothing. You have caught me. I own up. What are
you going to do about it?"
"That's just it," said Dunk. "We don't know what to do about it."
Silently Mortimer began taking from his pockets several pieces of
jewelry, evidently the things he had stolen from the rooms of other
students.
"That's all I have," he said, bitterly.
Andy and Dunk looked at him a moment without speaking and then Andy
asked:
"Why did you do it, Mortimer?"
"Why? I guess you know as well as I do. Everything is gone--dad's whole
fortune wiped out. We haven't a dollar, and I had to leave Yale. We kept
it quiet as long as we could. I didn't want to leave. I couldn't bear
to!
"Oh, call it what you like--foolish pride perhaps, but I wanted to stay
here and finish as I'd begun--with the best of the spenders. That's what
I've been--a spender. I couldn't be otherwise--I was brought up that
way. So, when I found I couldn't get any money any other way I began
stealing. I'm not looking for sympathy--I'm telling the plain truth. I
took your watch, Dunk. I took those books. I smuggled one into Link
Bardon's room, hoping he'd be suspected. There's no use in saying I'm
sorry. You wouldn't believe me. It's all up. You've got me right!"
He leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.
Andy and Dunk felt the lumps rising in their throats. They had to fight
back the tears from their eyes. Never before had they taken part in such
a grim tragedy--never again did they want to.
"You--you admit all the quadrangle thefts?" faltered Andy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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