"I'll tell you. When we got home he took me into his room to show me a new specimen. Then he asked me what the Pecks were going to do about the plagues, and I told him that there wasn't any change so far as I'd heard. At that he looked fierce, and said they'd get the full number then; they'd better look out, for he'd put them to the bad before he got through with them. Then he asked me if I didn't want to see what the next one was going to be. I said Yes, and he unlocked the closet door and let me look in. What do you think I saw?" Simmons paused and gazed at Owen with big, horrified eyes. "Well, what was it?" demanded the ball player. "I'm not going to guess through the whole zoölogy. Spit it out, can't you?" "In the back of the closet was a kind of wire-levered box like a big rat trap, and in the box was an awfully big, shiny, black snake, all coiled up!" "Dead?" asked Owen. "Alive!" "How did you know?" "I saw it move its head, and the eyes shone, and there was food for it sticking through the wires." "That's about the limit!" exclaimed Rob. "What then?" "He pulled me out and locked the door, and said, as quietly as if he were talking about a common _bug_, that he was going to wait a day or two and see if they were coming round. If they didn't, he'd give 'em the snake; he didn't know how yet, but they'd surely get it. Then he wanted me to promise not to let on about it to any one." "Did you promise?" Simmons straightened up. "No, I didn't," he declared proudly. "I just let him know what I thought of him and cleared out!" "You told Duncan about it, didn't you?" asked Rob. "Yes; how did you know?" "I could see it in his face when he was here a few minutes ago. You'd better not worry over it. Payner wouldn't put a snake like that into their room." "Oh, yes, he would," answered Simmons, wisely, with a doleful shake of his head. "You don't know that fellow. He's all right if you let him alone; but when he's mad, he's terrible. Why, he doesn't care any more for a snake like that than I do for an angleworm!" It was nearly time for dinner, and as both preferred to be on hand at Alumni when the doors were opened, the conversation came to an end. Rob half resolved to have a serious talk with the Pecks that evening and see if he could not induce them to put an end to the unseemly feud. But after dinner he was unexpectedly called to a baseball meeting, and after that there were two lessons to prepare; so it happened that with his work and his natural weariness from the game, and the excitement of his new prospects, he forgot completely the Pecks and Payner and the snake.