quently have visions of trees and
springs which lure them on, only to see them vanish in thin air.
Scientists call it a _mirage_. Life, too, has its mirages."

"How strange," said Frank to himself, as they were leaving the room,
"Bill and I used the same expression when we were talking together at
the hospital."

The boys went home a pensive lot. But everyone of them was determined to
solve the mystery.

Chapter V

The Holy Grail

By this time the whole parish knew about the affair at the Club. Like
all reports, it increased in the telling until there was the general
impression that the Club was a pack of rowdies. Many a father and mother
wondered why Father Boone tolerated such an organization.

"I thought these boys were in good keeping," said one mother to another.

"Yes, and it's worse than we know of," replied the other, "for I tried
to get at the facts from my Johnnie, but he was as close as a clam.
Unless it was something dreadful, he wouldn't mind telling his mother."

The fact was that the boys had reached an understanding not to talk
about the affair at all. They were determined to clear the Club's name
and until they had something definite to offer, explanations, they
decided, had best be omitted. So 'mum' was the word.

Mrs. Mulvy was returning from early Mass, that morning, when Mrs. Doyle,
a woman she highly regarded, stopped her to say that it was too bad that
Frank was mixed up in the row at the Club. Mrs. Mulvy only smiled and
remarked that she thought there must be some mistake. But a little later
in the day, Mrs. Duffy called on her and after a few conventional
remarks, said "I really think it is too bad, Mrs. Mulvy, that those boys
should be up to such mischief."

"Why, what do you refer to, Mrs. Duffy?"

"I thought you knew all about it--that wholesale smash-up at the Club.
Surely it was disgraceful. Furniture broken, the pictures and walls
disfigured and the whole house ransacked. It's a wonder some of them
were not arrested."

This was news to Mrs. Mulvy. She had heard Father Boone call the doings
at the Club serious, but she supposed that they were only serious in his
eyes, because of the high standard he had set for the boys. Now she
heard for the first time of wholesale damage, of wrecked rooms and
furniture! "Are you sure of all this?" she inquired.

Mrs. Duffy replied, "It must be so, for everybody is talking about it."
Then she added, "But my boy, George, won't open h