"If you'll come here I'll help you out!"
Drenched and dirty, Montgomery Jadell waded out of the brook. Then he turned and shook his fist at his tormentors.
"You young vipers!" he cried. "You young vipers!" And then, with his dripping silk hat still in hand he ran rather than walked to his home across the fields.
CHAPTER XII.
FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP.
"I'll venture to say that Mr. Montgomery Jadell will never forget his last day at Lakeport school," said Joe, to his brother, after the excitement had died down and Ebenezer Boles had sent the pupils home.
"He is mad clean through," returned Harry. "Perhaps we haven't heard the last of this. It was pretty rough horse-play."
"Oh, I don't think he will dare to say much. He knows that he is not liked. The committee are glad to get rid of him."
Joe was right in his surmise. Montgomery Jadell fussed and fumed a little when calling on Ebenezer Boles for the final instalment of his salary and the committeeman told the ex-principal just what he thought of him. The two parted with some hot words; and two days later Montgomery Jadell left Lakeport never to return.
The affair at school would have received more attention had it not been for the baseball match so close at hand. All of the boys of the town, and a good many men, too, were talking about it, and even some of the girls were interested. Laura made herself a neat three-cornered flag of blue, with the name Lakeport sewed on it in white, and some others followed her example. Hearing of this, the Excelsiors chose yellow for their color, and had some flags made with the name put on in black.