"
"There you go joking again," protested the girl, and turned away.
"Oh, well," declared Fred Ripley, "we must possess ourselves with
patience. We shall soon know the whole truth."
"Do you really think so?" asked Purcell.
"It's one of the surest things conceivable," railed Ripley. "That
bright constellation of freshmen known under the musical title
of Dick & Co. will solve the whole affair wit, in forty-eight
hours. Indeed, I'm not sure but Dick & Co., even at this moment,
carry the secret looked in their breasts."
Fred glanced quickly around him to see how much of a laugh this
had started. To his chagrin he found his bantering had fallen
flat.
"Oh, well," gaped Dowdell, gazing out of the window near which
he stood, "I know one important fact about the mystery."
"What's that?" asked half a dozen quickly.
"None of the five hundred is destined to come my way.
"That jest saddens a lot of us with the same conviction," muttered
Ted Butler, shaking his head.
"But this I _do_ know," continued Dowdell, "if the weather continues
cold there'll be some elegant skating before the week is out."
Gridley did not slumber over the nitroglycerine mystery. Len
Spencer, though he could gain no actual information, managed to
have something interesting on the subject in each morning's "Blade."
The people of Gridley talked of the mystery everywhere.
There was one other mild sensation this week that lasted for a
part of a day. Tip Scammon came up for his trial.
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