Instead of making any immediate reply in words, his companions at first gave him looks of incredulity and amazement, and then burst into loud peals of laughter. It was some time before they sobered down.
“What?” demanded Shriver. “Boycott Alan Heathcote? Send him to Coventry? Ha! ha! Why, you’d have the heaviest contract on your hands you ever had in your life. It’s all nonsense.”
“There’s not a fellow in the whole school who would be fool enough to join you,” said Archer, plainly and in disgust. “Why, you might as well try that scheme on Cole or Mr. Nicholson. No, no, my dear boy, that plan of yours won’t work. The fellows, as a rule, like Heathcote pretty well. He attends to his own business, stands well in his class, or will when the next exam. takes place, and to add to it all he’s as fleet of foot as a deer on the foot-ball field; so you would be the solitary duck in the puddle if you tried to freeze him out.”
Grant Mackerly listened to these responses of his friends in silence. Then his face assumed a determined look, and without another word to either of them he turned away and walked quickly out of the door to the campus and disappeared among the trees.
“Mad as a hornet,” observed Archer, carelessly.
“He’ll cool down by to-morrow,” remarked Shriver.
And they went into the recitation-room talking it over.
CHAPTER XXVI.
RIPLEY FALLS INVADES THE TOWN.
The story of Grant Mackerly’s attempt to place a boycott on Alan soon leaked out among the boys, and great was the merriment it aroused at the Hall.