"Then please don't let out a word," begged young Prescott, "about Dick & Co., as we fellows are called, being at the bottom of the plot against the Board of Education."
"Not a word!" promised Captain Edgeworth, gravely.
Then Dick was hustled good-naturedly to the door, Ben Badger once more springing forward to hold it open. As Dick hurried out onto the sidewalk a hurricane of cheers followed him. Then, as the door was closing, came a fierce burst of the High School yell.
Just as it happened, this parting salute couldn't have been worse timed. Within four doors Dr. Thornton, the principal, was sauntering slowly along. He heard tine hubbub, of course, and looked up, to see Dick Prescott coming out alone, a pleased look on his flushed face.
Across the street, just coming out of a store, was Chairman Jason
Stone of the Gridley Board of Education.
"Young Prescott! Bless my soul!" murmured Dr. Thornton. "Why are the football team making such a row over that young freshman?"
In another instant the principal's question all but answered itself.
"Why, I wonder," muttered the good doctor, "if the enthusiasm in any way relates to the hoax on the Board. Was Prescott at the bottom of it? I'll keep it in mind and try to find out!"
"If the football crew are making all that row over a mere freshman," thought Chairman Stone, "then young Prescott must be the inventor of the yarn that has made Gridley wonder whether we of the Board are so many 'dead ones.' Hm! hm! I'll find out if that's the case. Such a trick is clearly one that would call for expelling the young man from the High School!"