I have said that the society had no special object.  It is true, there was a tacit understanding among us that the Centipedes were to stand by one another on all occasions, though I don’t remember that they did; but further than this we had no purpose, unless it was to accomplish as a body the same amount of mischief which we were sure to do as individuals.  To mystify the staid and slow-going Rivermouthians was our frequent pleasure.  Several of our pranks won us such a reputation among the townsfolk, that we were credited with having a large finger in whatever went amiss in the place.

One morning, about a week after my admission into the secret order, the quiet citizens awoke to find that the signboards of all the principal streets had changed places during the night.  People who went trustfully to sleep in Currant Square opened their eyes in Honeysuckle Terrace.  Jones’s Avenue at the north end had suddenly become Walnut Street, and Peanut Street was nowhere to be found.  Confusion reigned.  The town authorities took the matter in hand without delay, and six of the Temple Grammar School boys were summoned to appear before justice Clapbam.

Having tearfully disclaimed to my grandfather all knowledge of the transaction, I disappeared from the family circle, and was not apprehended until late in the afternoon, when the Captain dragged me ignominiously from the haymow and conducted me, more dead than alive, to the office of justice Clapham.  Here I encountered five other pallid culprits, who had been fished out of divers coal-bins, garrets, and chicken-coops, to answer the demands of the outraged laws. (Charley Marden had hidden himself in a pile of gravel behind his father’s house, and looked like a recently exhumed mummy.)

There was not the least evidence against us; and, indeed, we were wholly innocent of the offence.  The trick, as was afterwards proved, had been played by a party of soldiers stationed at the fort in the harbor.  We were indebted for our arrest to Master Conway, who had slyly dropped a hint, within the hearing of Selectman Mudge, to the effect that “young Bailey and his five cronies could tell something about them signs.”  When he was called upon to make good his assertion, he was considerably more terrified than the Centipedes, though they were ready to sink into their shoes.

At our next meeting it was unanimously resolved that Conway’s animosity should not be quietly submitted to.  He had sought to inform against us in the stagecoach business; he had volunteered to carry Pettingil’s “little bill” for twenty-four icecreams to Charley Marden’s father; and now he had caused us to be arraigned before justice Clapham on a charge equally groundless and painful.  After much noisy discussion, a plan of retaliation was agreed upon.

There was a certain slim, mild apothecary in the town, by the name of Meeks.  It was generally given out that Mr. Meeks had a vague desire to get married, but, being a shy and timorous youth, lacked the moral courage to do so.  It was also well known that the Widow Conway had not buried her heart with the late lamented.  As to her shyness, that was not so clear.  Indeed, her attentions to Mr. Meeks, whose mother she might have been, were of a nature not to be misunderstood, and were not misunderstood by anyone but Mr. Meeks himself.