hool had ever taught him.

Of course, the other lads made great fun of the whole thing, and
plagued Dr. Alec's students half out of their lives. But they kept
on persistently, and one day something happened which made the other
fellows behave themselves for ever after.

It was a holiday, and Rose up in her room thought she heard the voices
of her cousins, so she ran down to welcome them, but found no one there.

"Never mind, they will be here soon, and then we'll have a frolic," she
said to herself, and thinking she had been mistaken she went into the
study to wait. She was lounging over the table looking at a map when an
odd noise caught her ear. A gentle tapping somewhere, and following the
sound it seemed to come from the inside of the long case in which the
skeleton lived when not professionally engaged. This case stood upright
in a niche between two book-cases at the back of the room, a darkish
corner, where Brother Bones, as the boys would call him, was out of the
way.

As Rose stood looking in that direction, and wondering if a rat had got
shut in, the door of the case swung slowly open, and with a great start
she saw a bony arm lifted, and a bony finger beckon to her. For a minute
she was frightened, and ran to the study door with a fluttering heart,
but just as she touched the handle a queer, stifled sort of giggle made
her stop short and turn red with anger. She paused an instant to collect
herself, and then went softly toward the bony beckoner. A nearer look
revealed black threads tied to the arm and fingers, the ends of threads
disappearing through holes bored in the back of the case. Peeping into
the dark recess, she also caught sight of the tip of an elbow covered
with a rough gray cloth which she knew very well.

Quick as a flash she understood the joke, her fear vanished, and with
a wicked smile, she whipped out her scissors, cut the threads, and
the bony arm dropped with a rattle. Before she could say, "Come out,
Charlie, and let my skeleton alone," a sudden irruption of boys, all in
a high state of tickle, proclaimed to the hidden rogue that his joke was
a failure.

"I told him not to do it, because it might give you a start," explained
Archie, emerging from the closet.

"I had a smelling bottle all ready if she fainted away," added Steve,
popping up from behind the great chair.

"It's too bad of you not to squawk and run; we depended on it, it's such
fun to howl after you," said Will and Geor