Page:Dave Porter at Oak Hall.djvu/175

Rh "So you won't work to put these rooms into order," said Phil. "That means that you'd rather take the consequences." He paused suggestively.

"I'll work—I'll work!" cried Macklin.

"Then get at it at once!" cried Roger, and the sneak set to work without delay, several of the others helping. He labored with a will, until the perspiration rolled down his face, and soon all the beds were up again and the furniture of the dormitories set where it belonged.

In the meantime Gus Plum was forced into one of the closets and the door was locked upon him. Then half a dozen of the students withdrew to a corner for consultation.

"We've got to get square—no two ways about that," declared Roger. "The only question is, now?"

"Might put him in the cellar, as we did Macklin."

"We could jumble their room, if it wasn't for the other fellows in it," suggested one of the crowd.

"He ought to have a coat of tar and feathers," declared Sam Day. "Just look at the work still to be done here!"

"Lazy is right," answered Dave, and then he smiled oddly. "That puts me in mind of a story I heard——"