"And won't Crabtree have a job getting them down!"
"Oh, my, what a thing to do!" came a voice from out of the darkness.
Pepper whirled around quickly, but the speaker had vanished, banging a
door after him.
"Who was that?" was the question Pepper asked himself. He could not
place the voice, and was much disturbed. Would the intruder, who had
seen his actions, expose him?
"I'll have to chance it," he told himself rather dubiously. "I can't get
the teeth down anyway. Too bad! I thought I was alone!" And then he
hurried off to bed in anything but a comfortable frame of mind.
[Illustration: THIS WAS A SIGNAL FOR THE DISCHARGE OF ALL SORTS OF
THINGS AT THE DANGLING OBJECT.
_The Mystery of Putnam Hall._ (Page 192)]
CHAPTER XX
PEPPER A PRISONER
At the usual hour the next morning Josiah Crabtree arose and dressed
himself. He was in a far from happy frame of mind, for a tailor's bill
he had to pay was higher than he thought it ought to be.
Having donned his garments, and washed himself and combed his hair, he
turned to the stand to get his new set of teeth.
He took up the glass and peered into it.
"Hum!" he mused. "I thought I put them in there--in fact, I was sure of
it!" he murmured.
He set the glass down and commenced to look around, on the bureau, on
his bookcase, on the shelf, and even on the chairs. But, of course,
nothing in the shape of the set of teeth came to light.
"This is queer, mighty queer," said the teacher to himself. "Now, let me
think what I did with them. Yes, I put them in the glass, I am positive
of it!"
He examined the glass once more, turning it around and around. Then he
commenced a systematic search of the room. At the conclusion something
like a groan escaped his lips.
"They are gone! gone!" he murmured hollowly. "And I left the old set at
the dentist's to be made over! Oh, what shall I do? I cannot go to the
classroom without my teeth, the cadets would roar at me! It must be a
trick, a wicked trick! Oh, if only I could find out who did this awful
thing!"
He made another hunt, and then, not knowing what else to do, opened his
door and hailed a passing cadet.
"Kindly ask Captain Putnam to step here as soon as he can," he mumbled.
"Yes, sir," answered the cadet, and looked curiously at the teacher.
"Got a toothache, Mr. Crabtree?"
"No, I have no toothache," mumbled the teacher. "Send Captain Putnam as
soon as you can," and then he dove back into his
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