Any ordinary school boy would have suspected some trick in connection with this box. But not so Codfish. He looked at it carefully, and then, bringing it close under the light, proceeded to pull the sliding cover back.
And then he was treated to another surprise, this time far more disagreeable than the other. The box contained a large codfish, one which, as Andy afterwards explained, had seen better days.
"Phew, what a smell!" cried the sneak, as he allowed the decayed codfish to fall out on the floor.
The odor when released from the air-tight box was so overpowering that he had to go over and throw open the window.
"Codfish for the Codfish!" sang out Andy gaily, unable to keep quiet any longer.
The sneak of the school whirled around suddenly, and there beheld in the doorway of the next room the Rover boys and their chums in a group, all grinning at him.
"How'd you like the fish, Codfish?" questioned Fred.
"Thought you said you didn't have any boxes in your room," came from Jack.
"I didn't know you were raising frogs for a living," remarked Randy.
"Why don't you take those boxes down and put them on the bonfire?" questioned Gif.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself--littering up your room with all that straw and excelsior," was Walt's comment. "If you aren't careful, you'll get some mighty bad marks for doing that."
"What did you do with the man who wanted to see you?" questioned Spouter. "Did you tell him that you were too busy to talk?"
"You're a fine bunch of fellows!" howled Codfish, not knowing what to say. "You had no business to play a trick like this on me!"
"Play a trick on you?" questioned Andy innocently. "Who has been playing a trick? Why, we don't know what it is to do anything like that!"
"I think somebody said you wanted to see us, but I don't know what for," added Randy.
"If anybody should ask me, I would say you had a queer way of cleaning house, Codfish," remarked Fred calmly.
"And to think he stole one of the codfish from the pantry!" said Jack. "By the way it smells, he must have taken it the day he enrolled here."
"Maybe he likes codfish good and strong," suggested Gif.
"I'll 'codfish' you fellows if you don't leave me alone!" howled the sneak. He was so vexed he almost felt like crying. "You just wait till Colonel Colby or Captain Dale hears about this!"