The Dozen from Lakerim

E-text prepared by Rick Niles, John Hagerson, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
By RUPERT HUGHES
Author of The Lakerim Athletic Club
1899.
TO THE BEST Father A BOY EVER HAD (EXCEPT POSSIBLY YOURS) BELONGS THE DEDICATION OF THIS STORY OF LIFE AT AN ACADEMY, SINCE HIS GOODNESS ENABLED ME TO KNOW IT AND WRITE IT
About half of this book was published serially in St. Nicholas. The rest of it is here printed for the first time. If in this story of life at a preparatory school I have neglected to say very much about books and studies, and have stuck to far less interesting matters, such as the games and gambols that while away the dull hours between classes, I hope my readers will graciously forgive the omission.
Some people think it great fun to build a house of cards slowly and anxiously, and then knock it to pieces with one little snip of the finger. Or to fix up a snow man in fine style and watch a sudden thaw melt him out of sight. Or to write a name carefully, like a copy-book, and with many curlicues, in the wet sand, and then scamper off and let the first high wave smooth it away as a boy's sponge wipes from his slate some such marvelous statement as, 12 × 12 = 120, or 384 ÷ 16 gives a koshunt of 25. When such things are erased it doesn't much matter; but there are occasions when it hurts to have Father Time come along and blot out the work you have taken great pains with and have put your heart into. Twelve young gentlemen in the town of Lakerim were feeling decidedly blue over just such an occasion.
You may not find the town of Lakerim on the map in your geography. And yet it was very well known to the people that lived in it. And the Lakerim Athletic Club was very well known to those same people. And the Lakerim Athletic Club, or, at least the twelve founders of the club, were as blue as the June sky, because it seemed to them that Father Time—old Granddaddy Longlegs that he is—was playing a mean trick on them.