"That is well. Any young man who has just spent many days communing with grand old Nature should feel it beneath his dignity to whisper to mere mortals. Master Hazelton, you are moving uneasily in your seat. Be calm; you will not have to cook your own dinner to-day. Miss Bentley, it is hardly fair to smile so knowingly. For aught of evidence that may be presented, Master Hazelton may be a very excellent cook. Only his late camping comrades really know—and I'm certain they won't expose him. Attention! Turn to page 46 of your singing books."
After the singing exercises had been finished Old Dut announced:
"Master Reade and Miss Kimball will pass around with this composition paper. Each member of the class will have twenty minutes in which he will write a brief but interesting description of something that he saw, and which impressed him, during the vacation just closed."
Then, for some minutes, all was quiet save the scratching of pens through the room. Yet Old Dut, expert reader of pupils' eyes and glances, presently cast a bombshell by declaring in his dryest tone:
"Any pupil who writes anything believed to be funny will be required to explain before the class just what he considers the joke to be. He will then also be required to laugh three times at his own joke."
Here we will leave the Grammar School boys—and girls—for the present. However, we shall catch up with them again in the next volume in this series, which deals with spring sports, adventures and mysteries, and with a jolly good round of all the phases of public school life that interest young readers. This next volume is published under the title, "The Grammar School Boys in the Woods; Or, Dick & Co. Trail Fun and Knowledge."