“I guess it will do,” he said slowly—“only,—” “Well, what’s the matter with my plan?” demanded the bully half angrily. “If you or I propose such a game to Bill or his brothers they’ll smell a rat right away.” “Of course they will, but you don’t s’pose I’m such a ninnie as to propose it ourselves; do you?” “What then?” “Why I’ll have some one who is friendly to them do it. Oh, don’t worry, they’ll fall for it all right enough. Now come on over to my room, and we’ll fix it up,” and the two cronies, one a rather unwilling participator in the plot, walked along the campus, casting back a look at the gaily lighted windows of the apartments of the Smith boys. “Hang it all!” mused Mersfeld as he tried to quiet an uneasy conscience, “I don’t want to get those fellows into trouble, but I want to be back in my rightful place as pitcher on the Varsity.” And then he and North went into the details of the plot against our heroes, against Bill more particularly, for it was he whom Mersfeld wanted to displace. CHAPTER XIX THE PROFESSOR’S WARNING “Say, Cap, don’t you think things are rather slow, not to say dreary around here?” asked Bob Chapin a few days after the ball game, as he strolled into the elder Smith lad’s room, and appropriated the easiest chair. “It’s the spring fever or the summer sleeping sickness coming on, I’m sure.” “What’s up now, Bob?” asked Bill, as he tossed aside his chemistry, glad of an excuse to stop studying. “What Bob needs is to train for the eleven or get into a baseball uniform,” added Pete. “He’s getting fat and lazy, and he hasn’t any interest in life.” “Get out!” cried the visitor, who did not go in for athletics, and who preferred to be considered a “Sport,” with a capital “S,” wearing good clothes and spending all his spare time in a town billiard parlor. “You get out, Pete. Didn’t I try for the glee club?” “Yes, but you were too lazy to practice,” remarked Cap frankly. “How brutal of you!” cried Chapin, with a mock theatrical air. “Didn’t I even forgive my enemies and beg them to take me into the banjo club?” “Which, for the good of the service, they refused to do,” went on the elder Smith. “Oh, have you no mercy?” asked the visitor in a high falsetto voice, striking an attitude. “We’re all out of it—expect a fresh lot in next week,” answered Bill. Then after a pause he added: “Now there’s a thing you could do, Bob.” “What’s that?” “Go in for theatricals. Why don’t you join the Paint and Powder club?” “Oh, I don’t know. Afraid of spoiling my complexion with burnt cork and grease preparations, I guess,” was the indolent reply. “But I don’t want to discuss myself. I was asking if you fellows didn’t find it dull here? Why, there hasn’t been a thing pulled off since we brought the calf into the ancient history class two weeks ago. It is frightfully dull at Westfield. Don’t you think so, really?”