A DOUBLE TRICK. By A. L. SMALL.

When the four of us got back to boarding school, after the holidays, the first thing we did was to “put up a job” on Plug, the old fellow who occupied the dormitory with us.

“I’ve got it,” said Decker. “We’ll dissect him. I don’t mean out and out; but just make believe, you know. I’ve an uncle that’s a medical man,” and he told me all about it. “I’ll tell Plug we’re going to study anatomy, and must have a subject; and we’ll have some jolly fun. To-night the professor is going to a lecture, and takes his wife with him, so we’ll go up to our dormitory after study hour, and open the door between Plug’s room and ours, and lock the outside ones. We’ll have a table and knives, and a bucket for the blood, and everything prepared, and he’ll believe it all, eh?”

“Jolly!” said I.

And then we set to work to talk it over, sitting on the bench under the dining-room window, and mightily scared we were, to be sure, when, after a while, the window went up behind us, and Plug himself poked his head out. He hadn’t heard a word, though; for all he said was:

“Mornin’, young gents. I hope you’ve had a merry Christmas?”

When Decker makes up his mind to do a thing, he does it. And that night all seemed easy. The professor took his wife to the lecture. The assistant marched the little uns to bed at nine.

Then we heard Plug stumble up, and at ten we four filed upstairs. We’d bought candles and smuggled a couple of long boards up, and I took the sheets off my bed, and spread them over the boards.

Then we took out our four knives, rolled up our shirt sleeves, unlocked Plug’s door, and marched in.

Plug lay sound asleep in bed, or looked as if he did; and Decker walked up to him and shook him.

“Wake up, Plug; you are wanted,” said he solemnly.

Plug lifted up his head.

“Tain’t mornin’, is it?” asked he.

“No,” said Decker. “Science does not wait for morning.”

“Hey?” said Plug.

“Rise and follow us,” said Decker.

“I shan’t do no such thing,” said Plug. “None of your tricks now, young gents.”

“This is no trick,” said Decker solemnly. “Follow us.”

Plug got up, wrapped in a queer old dressing gown that he slept in, and came toddling after us. When he saw the stretcher in the middle of our room, he stood quite still.

“What’s that for?” asked he.

“Plug,” said Decker, “it is for scientific purposes. We are now medical students, and we must study anatomy. You are a splendid subject, being all bones, and we are going to dissect you. We’ll give you chloroform, if you like, but we must do it. You know you can’t help yourself; so be quiet.”

“Be quiet, and be dissected? No, young gents—no, indeed,” quavered Plug; “but it’s only a joke. Now, ha’ done, an’ let an old man go to bed.”

“Plug,” said Decker, “this is folly. Hoist him up, boys!”

And we four seized the old man and laid him on the boards. He struggled less than we expected. He didn’t believe it yet.

“Tie him,” said Decker.

We did it. He only flopped about a little, like a dying fish.

“Do you want to say a prayer?” asked Decker.

“Now, do ha’ done, young gents,” said Plug. “You don’t dare for to murder me.”

“Dissecting is lawful,” said Decker, as he took out his knife.

“Help!” cried Plug—“professor—Mr. Jangs—missis—help, help!”

“Silence,” said Decker. “Gentlemen, you perceive this is the breastbone. I commence here.”

He lowered his knife. At that instant Plug gave a jump, and it wasn’t so much that the knife went into him as that he went into the knife. His breast—a bulgy, chicken breast he had—went right up, the point stuck, and out poured the blood—not a few drops, but quarts of it—all over him, all over the sheet, down on the painted floor. Decker’s hands were red, so were his pants.

“Oh, dear!” he screamed, “oh, what have I done? Oh, Plug, it was only a joke! Oh, I didn’t mean to! Oh, oh, oh! Get up! Say you ain’t hurt?”

“Young gent,” said Plug faintly, “I’m murdered. You’ll be hung; that’s my comfort. Good-by.”

And with that his tongue stuck out of his mouth perfectly black, and his eyes rolled up, and he gasped and gurgled.

“Dead!” shrieked Decker, and tumbled over on the floor: and just then—rap, rap, rap at the door, and the professor’s voice:

“What’s all this noise, young gentlemen?”

“Please, sir,” I cried, “Sprat has had a nightmare;” and my teeth chattered so I could not speak.

“Tell Sprat to remember that nightmares disturb the house,” said the professor, “and that I disapprove of them.”

Then he went slowly downstairs, and Decker lifted up his head again, and said:

“Dead! Dead! We’ll all be hung!”

“You’ll be,” said Sprat. “Not us.”

“Accomplices,” said Decker. “Oh, dear, oh!”

“Well,” said Brown, the coolest of us all, “the thing is done. It can’t be helped. All we can do is to hide it. We must put him back in his room and lock both doors, leaving the knife in his hand; then wash up the floor, burn the sheets, throw the boards out of the window, and go to bed. It will be called suicide, and we’ll escape.”

“But we’ve killed him,” said Decker. “I’m a murderer, so are you—all of you.”

“You don’t want to be hung, do you?” cried Brown. “We didn’t mean to do it. Shut up—don’t betray yourselves. Come, boys! Sprat, make a fire out of copy books. Roper, pitch these boards out of the window. Wait. Here, Decker, catch hold of poor Plug. We must have him in bed first.”

“I can’t touch him,” said Decker. “I’d die.”

“Then, Roper, come here!” said Brown. “Don’t mind. Shut your eyes, if you have to. What did we get ourselves in this box for? How his tongue sticks out, and how black it is! I’m sick—oh, how sick I am! I say, if we don’t hurry, we’ll all be hung! Think of your mothers! Mine would die! There, that’s brave!”

And so we carried poor Plug back into the little room we had dragged him from, and put him into bed, put the knife in his flabby hand, and rushed out, locking him in. Then it was easier to work, the three of us. Decker couldn’t do anything, and we covered him up in his bedclothes. It took Brown and Sprat and me all night to tear the big linen sheets up and burn them bit by bit, and to scrub the floor.

After that there was Decker in a sort of spasm, and we had to wash his hands and face, undress him, and wash his things like a baby.

Five o’clock struck when we finally tumbled into bed, cold and miserable and horror-stricken; but if we could have slept otherwise, Decker’s moans would have kept us awake.

We four oldest scholars breakfasted with the professor and Mrs. Stuffemwell. Plug usually waited. We knew he wouldn’t this morning—couldn’t—and every minute we expected to hear cries and calls of murder; but nothing of the sort happened.

We dragged Decker up, and dressed him, and he went down with us, the worst-looking object you ever saw; but the professor didn’t notice his looks, Mrs. Stuffemwell, either, until when he said: “Will you be helped to steak, Decker?” he answered.

“Heaven forgive me! No.”

Then naturally says he:

“Decker, are you going crazy?”

We didn’t know what was coming now, but Brown up and answered:

“If you please, I think Decker is very sick, and a little out of his mind since the nightmare.”

“I thought it was Sprat who had the nightmare,” said Mrs. Stuffemwell.

“We made a mistake in the dark. It was Decker,” said Brown.

“Decker will do the ten extra problems, then, instead of Sprat,” said the professor.

Just then in came the assistant.

“Professor,” he said, speaking very fast, “the school fire is not made. Plug is not up yet.”

“Poor old man,” said Mrs. Stuffemwell; “he is growing feeble. Let him sleep. One of the women will make the fire.”

“They were saying he might have had a fit or something in the night, sir,” said the assistant. “His door’s locked.”

“No, no. I trust not,” said the professor. “I trust not. A worthy old man that; and, by the way, his name is not Plug. Nicknames are very indiscreet, Mr. Ginger.”

“Beg pardon. I should have said Thomas,” said Mr. Ginger. “I’ve no doubt Thomas is very well.”

Poor Decker gave a groan.

“Two more problems, Decker,” said the professor. “You must have another nightmare.”

Then, breakfast being over, we went into the recitation room, and the professor read a chapter. It was that one where Cain kills Abel. When he got to where he says: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Decker tumbled over on the floor, and had to be taken out and have water put to his head.

After a while, talking it over, we decided that the family knew that Plug was dead, and wanted to hide what they supposed to be his suicide from the school, for fear of losing scholars, and that eased us three a little; but nothing helped Decker.

He sat in an awful state of mind, trying to do his problems in vain, and talking to himself.

At dinner he ate nothing. At tea time he was worse, for he was seasick, and had to be carried out. And when study hour came, there he was with his problems again.

The young ones had gone to bed. Mr. Ginger, also. The professor presided at the study table, and Mrs. Stuffemwell sat by the fire, crocheting.

All was very still, when, suddenly, there came three knocks on the door. The professor never stirred. They came again.

“Shall I open the door, sir?” said Brown.

“For what?” asked the professor.

“A knock, sir,” said Brown.

“I heard none; but see,” said the professor.

Brown opened the door. There was no one there.

He took his seat again. Before he had lifted his book, the door was pushed open, and in walked some one. The professor took no notice; neither did Mrs. Stuffemwell. But Brown, staring, as we all did, cried out:

“Why, there’s Plug.”

“Where?” asked the professor.

“There,” said I. “There,” said we all, pointing to the spot.

“I see no one in the room but ourselves,” said the professor, “and I have private reasons to believe that Thomas, whom you impolitely call Plug, will not be here to-night. I shall not mention why I think so here.”

“But I see him,” cried Decker.

“There!” said Sprat.

“There!” said I.

“There!” said Brown.

“How dare you say so, young gentlemen?” said Mrs. Stuffemwell.

But we all saw Plug, white as a sheet, his black tongue sticking out of his mouth; and as he came toward us, and we saw a red stain on his breast, we knew it was his ghost; and Decker uttered an awful yell, and flung himself on his knees, and began to pray for mercy on his soul. And then the professor began to roar, and Mrs. Stuffemwell to shriek with laughter, and Plug, pulling something black out of his mouth, laughed, too.

“I’ve had revenge enough, young gents,” said he. “I don’t want to kill nobody, nor to dissect ’em, neither; but I’d had tricks enough played on me, and I thought I’d see if I couldn’t play one, too. Asking professor’s leave, I heard your plans at the window; and as I’ve been with traveling play actors in my time, I knew what a bladder of blood could do, and jest how to manage the whole of it. And so I’ve had my turn for once, I hope, if you do think me a fool—as I ain’t, young gents, I promise you.”

With which Plug bowed to the professor and Mrs. Stuffemwell, and toddled away, out of the room.

We three were glad to get a caning next day, but Decker was too sick to bear one for a week; and I know, for he told me so, that he never attempted to play a joke on any one again.