"I'm pretty sure I could, yes, sir," answered Dick, with great promptness. "Only—I don't believe I'm big enough yet!"
There was a moment's hush. Then the class caught the spirit of the answer. A few titters sounded, cautiously—to be followed instantly by an explosion of laughter. Even Old Dut had to join in the laugh.
"That young man will bear watching," thought the principal grimly. "He's my best pupil, and one of the most mischievous. I'd rather have any youngster mischievous than stupid."
Glancing at the clock, Principal Jones swung around, running a finger down a line of push buttons in the wall back of his seat. In this fashion did he announce to the schoolrooms of the seven lower grades that morning recess time had come. Then he swung back.
"Attention, class!" he called. Tap! sounded a bell. The eighth-grade boys and girls rose, standing by their seats.
Tap! At the second bell the lines filed out in orderly fashion to the coatrooms, at the sides of the schoolroom.
But many of the young people soon came back. It was raining heavily outdoors on this September morning. True, the boys' and girls' basements served as playrooms in bad weather, but the basements were always crowded at such times, and many of the young people preferred to pass the recess time in the schoolroom.
"Old Dut's getting rather too fresh these days," growled Greg Holmes to his chum. Then whispered in Dick's ear:
"We'll get hunk with him to-night. Some of us will go around and play the wreck scene in his flower gardens."
"Nothing doing," retorted Dick briefly.