"That he's been caught in the trick puts a crimp in him," chuckled Chet
Belding.

"And that isn't all that ought to happen to him," muttered Short and Long,
who seemed to have become suddenly very bitter against the dandified Sweet.

"Can it, Billy, can it," advised Lance. "Give a calf rope enough and he
will hang himself."

"And maybe that fellow ought to be hung," was Short and Long's further
comment.

"Why, Billy!" exclaimed Laura, "what ever do you mean?"

"Yes, Short and Long," said Jess. "Why the 'orrid hobservation about poor
Purt?"

Perhaps Billy Long would have blurted out something, had not another
incident taken place which so excited all the young people that they forgot
Purt Sweet and his foibles.

The group had reached Lakeside Avenue, which overlooked many shore estates
and some private docks. This was the residential end of Centerport, and the
vicinity in summer was lovely. Now the outlook on Lake Luna's sparkling
surface--frozen in a sheen of ice to the shore of Cavern Island in the
middle of the lake--was wonderfully attractive.

At the foot of Nugent Street, which they now reached, the girls and boys
from Central High heard suddenly a great shouting and peals of laughter