Arm in arm the three went off down the street, feeling as though the world had turned right side up once more.
Dick met his partners on the way to the High School. All were grinning quietly.
"You're the genius, Dick," admitted Dan Dalzell, cordially. "My undertaker scheme would have been ghastly. It would have taken all the edge off the joke—-would have spoiled it, and the joke would have been a club that would have hit us over the head. But, say! I wonder if the Grannies' Club will dare to touch our sacred football now!"
"Don't waste any time wondering," chuckled Tom Reade. "They wont."
It was a happy day in the famous old Gridley High School. Actually, the recitations went off better than they had done on any day since term opening.
Dick Prescott was out on the street rather early that afternoon. He wanted to run across Len Spencer, and chose Main Street as the most likely thoroughfare for the purpose. He met the reporter at the head of a little alleyway.
"Well, Dick, how did you like it?" was the reporter's greeting.
"Say, it was great!" Dick bubbled over.
"What do they think down at H.S.?"
"Think?" repeated young Prescott. "Why, everybody is in ecstasies. The gloom of yesterday has vanished like the mist from a cheap cigar. You're suspected of writing the article, too, Len. If the High School students can find any proof that you did you'll get a rouser in the way of handsome treatment."