I say you did! cried Fred Ripley, hotly. Dick Prescott's cheeks turned a dull red as he replied, quietly, after swallowing a choky feeling in his throat: "I have already told you that I did not do it." "Then who did do the contemptible thing?" insisted Ripley, sneeringly. Fully forty boys, representing all the different classes at the Gridley High School, stood looking on at this altercation in the school grounds. Half a dozen of the girls, too, hovered in the background, interested, or curious, though not venturing too close to what might turn out to be a fight in hot blood. "If I knew,"...

Football is all at sixes and sevens, this year, muttered Dave Darrin disconsolately. "I can tell you something more than that," added Tom Reade mysteriously. "What?" asked Dick Prescott, looking at Reade with interest, for it was unusual for Reade o employ that tone or air. "Two members of the Athletics Committee have intimated to Coach Morton that they'd rather see football passed by this year." "What?" gasped Dick. He was staring hard now. "Fact," nodded Tom. "At least, I believe it to be a fact." "There must be something wrong with that news," put in Greg Holmes anxiously.

Clang! "Attention, please." The barely audible droning of study ceased promptly in the big assembly room of the Gridley High School. The new principal, who had just stepped into the room, and who now stood waiting behind his flat-top desk on the platform, was a tall, thin, severe-looking man of thirty-two or three. For this year Dr. Carl Thornton, beloved principal for a half-score of years, was not in command at the school. Ill health had forced the good old doctor to take at least a year's rest, and this stranger now sat in the Thornton chair. "Mr. Harper," almost rasped out Mr. Cantwell's...

Do you care to go out this evening, Danny boy? asked Dave Darrin, stepping into his chum's room. "I'm too excited and too tired," confessed Ensign Dalzell. "The first thing I want is a hot bath, the second, pajamas, and the third, a long sleep." "Too bad," sighed Dave. "I wanted an hour's stroll along Broadway." "Don't let my indolence keep you in," urged Dalzell. "If you're going out, then I can have the first hot bath, and be as long about it as I please. Then I'll get into pajamas and ready for bed. By that time you'll be in and we can say good night' to each other." "I feel a bit mean...

Naval Academy, did not finish what he was about to say. While speaking he had closed the door behind him and had stepped into the quarters occupied jointly by himself and by Midshipman Daniel Dalzell, also of the first or upper class. "Danny boy isn't here. Visiting, probably," mused Dave Darrin, after having glanced into the alcove bedroom at his right hand. It was a Saturday night, early in October. The new academic year at the Naval Academy was but a week old. There being no "hop" that night the members of the brigade had their time to spend as they pleased. Some of the young men would...

So Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton have been here? demanded Midshipman Dave Darrin. That handsome young member of the brigade of midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis was now in mufti, or cits, - meaning, in other words, that he was out of his Naval uniform and attired in the conventional clothing of a young American when calling on his sweetheart. It will make the situation even clearer to the reader to explain that Dave was back in the home town, on his September leave, after just having completed his second summer practice cruise with the three upper classes from...

There's just one thing that I keep thinking about on a day like this, Dave Darrin sighed contentedly. "What's that?" Tom Reade wanted to know. "Supper?" Darrin turned, favoring Reade with a flash of disgust from his large, dark eyes. "I'm still waiting for the information," insisted Tom after a short pause. "You may as well wait," retorted Dave. "You wouldn't understand what I feel, anyway. Any fellow who can keep his mind on supper, on a grand June day like this -" "I imagine that you'll keep your mind on the meal when you reach the table," predicted Tom, grinning. "That'll be time enough,"...

Hello, Timmy! "'Lo, Reade." "Warm night," observed Tom Reade, as he paused not far from the street corner to wipe his perspiring face and neck with his handkerchief. "Middling warm," admitted Timmy Finbrink. Yet the heat ouldn't have made him extremely uncomfortable, for Tom Reade, amiable and budding senior in the Gridley High School, smiled good naturedly as he stood surveying as much as he could make out of the face of Timmy Finbrink in that dark stretch of the street. Timmy was merely a prospective freshman, having been graduated a few days before from the North Grammar School in Gridley.

You'll find your man in the lobby of the Eagle Hotel or in the neighborhood of the hotel on Main Street, said Dick Prescott. "You can hardly miss him." "But how will I know Mr. Hibbert, when I see him?" pursued the stranger. "I don't know hat his name is Hibbert," Dick answered. "However, he is the only young man who has just reached town fresh from Europe. His trunks are pasted all over with labels." "You'll know the young man, sir," Tom Reade broke in, with a quiet smile. "He always wears a spite-fence collar. You could bill a minstrel show on that collar." "A collar is but a slight means...