The Moons were "preps." Their father was a manufacturer who dominated the little town in Connecticut in which he lived. Reginald, the younger, timid and childish, was a "kid"; his brother Clarence, sleek in figure and dress, and ignorantly pretentious by training, foolishly sought to make up for the position of insignificance in which he found himself at school by dwelling upon his importance at home. The Pecks, sons of a congressman and nephews of a distinguished judge, holding this method of self-glorification quite out of place in the school republic, determined to make clear to the Moons, by a plain object lesson, the value of humility. While the juniors were safely enclosed for a full hour in the Latin room, the law-breaking twins invaded the Moon rooms and spent three-quarters of an hour in rearing a heap which, from its foundations of bed frames to the dome of crockery on top, showed great promise of architectural ability. Then they displayed themselves at the gymnasium and fell in with the Moons on the way homeward, as the swarm of Latinists poured forth from recitation. They entered the dormitory in pairs, Duncan and Reginald in front, Clarence delayed by Donald's loitering. At the head of the stairs Duncan parted from his companion, and, with the air of one who had important work to do, entered his room and shut the door hard behind him. Once inside, however, this important work proved to be nothing more than to glue his ear to the crack of the door and wait. He heard Reggie walk down the entry to his room, he heard the voices of the lagging pair rising from the stairs, then quick steps hurrying to meet them, sudden ejaculations, and the dash of all three toward the preps' room. There was nothing left for him then but to bottle his impatience and depend on Donald to give him a fair show. And Donald proved a safe reliance. The Moons' door opened; voices and steps approached. Duncan had barely time to dart to his desk and seize a book when Donald burst in with Clarence at his elbow. In clumsily feigned surprise, the student looked up at the invaders, his glance resting but for an instant on the countenance of his brother, whose look of malicious joy, poorly cloaked by an unnatural trait of solemnity, would have aroused immediate suspicion in an acute observer. On Clarence's pink-and-white face anger and fright struggled together for expression. Both twins found relief in Donald's exclamation:-- "Some one has ripped up the Moons' room. Come in and see it!" The trio hastened back to the dishevelled room. "Gee whiz, what a pile!" exclaimed Duncan in a veritable shock of admiration as he came suddenly in sight of the desolation. He had looked upon his finished work but a few minutes before and found it sufficient; but now, as the scene suddenly flashed its fresh impression upon him, his surprise was almost real. As a monument of havoc the heap was a work of art. "They didn't do a thing to you, did they! Who was it, anyway?"