“It’s lucky for you that Preston happened to turn up just now,” he snarled. “I was just getting ready to give you the licking of your life.”
“I noticed that,” said Joe dryly, as he picked up his books. “Only instead of doing it with your fists, you were going to do it with your books, like the coward that you are. You gave yourself away that time, Buck. It isn’t necessary for any one to show you up. You can be depended on to do that job yourself.”
By this time the principal was only a few yards away, and Buck and his friends walked away rapidly, while Bob and Joe followed more slowly, so that Mr. Preston soon caught up with them.
“Good afternoon, boys,” he said, as he came abreast of them. “You seemed to be a little excited about something.”
“Yes, we were having a little argument,” admitted Joe.
The principal looked at them sharply and waited as though he expected to hear more. But as nothing further was said, he did not press the matter. If the trouble had taken place in the school or on the school premises, he would have felt it his duty to go to the bottom of the affair. But he had no jurisdiction here, and he was too wise a man to mix in things that did not directly concern him or his work.
“Well, how goes radio?” he asked, changing the subject. “Are you boys just as enthusiastic over it as you were the night you won the Ferberton prizes?”
“More so than ever,” replied Bob, and Joe confirmed this with a nod of the head. “It’s getting so that almost every minute we have out of school we’re either tinkering with our set or listening in. We’ve just finished putting up a new umbrella aerial, and it’s a dandy.”
“I use that kind myself,” said Mr. Preston. “I get better results with it than I do with anything else.”
“Why, are you a radio enthusiast, too?” asked Bob, in some surprise. “I didn’t have any idea you were interested in it.”