Page:Baseball Joe on the School Nine.djvu/55

 Joe with a laugh.But what's your game, not to let old Sixteen catch us at this forbidden mid-night feast? Have you dummies in your beds?"

"Not a dum. But watch my smoke."

From the parcels he carried, Teeter produced what looked to be books—books, as attested by the words on their cover—books dealing with Latin, and the science of physics.

"There are our plates," he said as he laid the books down on the table. Then Joe and Tom saw that the books were merely covers pasted over a sort of box into which a whole pie could easily be put. "Catch the idea," went on Teeter. "We are eating in here, which is against the rules, worse luck. But, perchance, some monitor or professor knocks unexpectedly. Do we have to hustle and scramble to conceal our refreshments? Answer—we do not. What do we do?"

"Answer," broke in Peaches. "We merely slip our pie or sandwiches or whatever it happens to be, inside our 'books,' and go right on studying. Catch on?"

"I should say we did!" exclaimed Joe. "That's great!"

"But what about the bottles of strawberry pop?" asked Tom. "We can't hide them in the fake books."