"When it gets warmer there are going to be more things," Simmons continued, growing more confidential and serious as he proceeded. "All sorts of bugs, for example, and hornets' nests that you can take off in the night and throw in through the windows. It's easy to get half a pint of ants from any big ant hill if you only know how, and the brown-tail moth caterpillars they talk so much about--the hairs fly and are poisonous, you know--it wouldn't be at all hard to find a nest with the caterpillars just in the right stage outside the town somewhere. Then he took me into his room and showed me an enormous spider he had in a bottle--he got it from home--and asked me how I thought the Pecks would like it to find such a thing in their pajamas some night. Isn't it awful!" Simmons stopped for breath, and looked horror-struck from face to face. "What's it all for, anyway?" asked Laughlin. "Why, the Pecks ripped up his room, and spoiled some of his specimens," explained Rob. "He wants them to apologize and agree to let him alone. They won't do it." "Oh, I remember now," Laughlin said. "One of them came to me about a month ago, and asked me what to do. I gave him a raking down for playing such fool tricks, and told him to go and apologize and try to patch it up with Payner. I don't know which it was. I never could tell 'em apart." "It was Duncan," said Owen. "I gave him the same advice. He's willing to do the right thing, but the other one keeps him back." "Well, let them suffer then, that's all I've got to say," remarked Laughlin. "I've no sympathy to waste on fools or fellows who won't own up when they're in the wrong." The senior departed, leaving Owen comforted and reassured. He could afford to wait, he told himself after his caller had gone. Let them give Patterson to Borland if they wished. Borland couldn't manage him, Rob was convinced, and when the new combination failed, Patterson would come back to him, and the pair could start again and work up together. Then it would be clear which was the better catcher, and which battery was the more useful to the school. Yes, Laughlin was right; it was better to work one's way up than to claim a high place at the outset and afterward have to change to the lowest, like the man in the parable who was bidden to a feast. But it was hard on Pat! In the meantime Simmons had disappeared. He came in again soon, and rather shamefacedly confessed that he had been laboring with the Pecks. "What luck?" asked Rob; "did they bluff you?" "That's just what they did. Duncan laughed at me and Donald said he wasn't afraid of anything Payner could produce, either fresh or canned. I told them I merely wanted to warn them of what was before them, and Donald said the chief thing before them was to wipe up the ground with Payner. Then I said they'd better look out, for Payner had a gun, and Donald said he'd need it. I didn't seem to be getting on, so I cleared out."