“On the same principle that a man likes to look at his aching tooth after the dentist has pulled it out,” grinned Joe.
“Don’t give it to him!” exclaimed Herb, edging away out of reach, justly fearing that he might feel the vengeance of the outraged Jimmy.
“You gave it to him first, so it’s his,” decided Bob, with the wisdom of a Solomon, as he handed it over to the victim.
Jimmy took it and started for Herb, but just then Mr. Preston, the principal of the high school, came along and Jimmy felt compelled to defer his revenge.
“How are you, boys?” said Mr. Preston, with a smile. “You seem to be having a good time.”
“Jimmy is,” returned Herb, and Jimmy covertly shook his fist at him. “We’re making the most of the snow and ice while it lasts.”
“Well, I don’t think it will last much longer,” surmised Mr. Preston, as he walked along with them. “As a matter of fact, winter is ‘lingering in the lap of spring’ a good deal longer than usual this year.”
“I suppose you had a pleasant time in Washington?” remarked Joe inquiringly, referring to a trip from which the principal had returned only a few days before.
“I did, indeed,” was the reply. “To my mind it’s the most interesting city in the country. I’ve been there a number of times, and yet I always leave there with regret. There’s the Capitol, the noblest building on this continent and to my mind the finest in the world. Then there’s the Congressional Library, only second to it in beauty, and the Washington Monument soaring into the air to a height of five hundred and fifty-five feet, and the superb Lincoln Memorial, and a host of other things scarcely less wonderful.
“But the pleasantest recollection I have of the trip,” he went on, “was the speech I heard the President make just before I came away. It was simply magnificent.”