"Oh, nonsense, old man!"
"I believe I'd rather not," replied Prescott, sadly; "though I'm tremendously grateful to those who want me to come and who would try to make it pleasant for me."
Thompson argued, but it was no use.
"Why, every one of your partners is going," said Frank. "Here comes Dave Darrin now. He'll tell you so."
"Nope," said Dave, with all the energy at his command. "We understand we're to be invited, and we'd give almost anything to go, but Dick & Co. don't go unless the Dick part of the firm is with us."
The junior dance came off, and was a good deal of a success in many ways. Only one of the ten boys of the freshman class who were invited attended. Eight girls of the same class were invited, but only two of them accepted. Laura Bentley decided, at the last moment, against attending.
Within ten days two important games came off between the Gridley
H.S. and other crack high school teams. Gridley won both.
"It would be cheeky in me to go to the game, when I'm suspended—-hardly a H.S. boy, in fact," Dick explained to his partners. "But you go.
"No, sir!" muttered Greg Holmes.
"Not if you feel that you can't go," protested Harry Hazelton.
"Dick & Co. go together, or not at all."