wore a pretty flat outlook, unless they
could arrange some interesting diversion for that string of dull days,
only broken by Christmas holidays. The West Ward fellows had a Checker
Club, the Third Form fellows had a Puzzle Club, the Collegiates had a
Canadian Literature Club; even the Mill boys down on the Flats had a
Captain Kidd Club, proving themselves at times bandits quite worthy the
club's name. Only the North Street boys seemed "out of it," but from the
way they talked and shouted and wrangled at these preliminary meetings
it looked as if they certainly intended to "come in" out of their
isolation. But there had been five meetings without any decision having
been arrived at. Every boy of the ten present seemed to want a different
sort of club. The things that were suggested would have amazed the
members of the various other clubs could they have heard them.

Then, one night when the din and confusion were at fever heat, the door
suddenly opened and in walked Benson's father.

"Why, what's all this babel?" he exclaimed, as silence fell on the
crowd and the boys got to their feet meekly to greet him with polite
"good-evenings." "I never heard such a parrot-and-monkey, Kilkenny-cat
outfit in all my life! What's up, fellows?"

Benson's father was generally acknowledged to be a "comedian." No one
ever saw him in a temper, or heard him speak a sharp word. He had a
droll, woebegone face that never smiled, but a face everybody--from the
mayor to the poorest mill hand--loved and respected. How often Benson
had come in from school, ill-tempered and sour-visaged at something that
had gone wrong in the class-room, only to have that droll face of his
father's and some equally droll remark upset all his dignity and
indignation into laughter and consequent good nature.

"One at a time, boys, just one at a time, or I shall have bustificated
eardrums! What is it all about?"

Then they told him, but, it must be confessed, not one at a time.

"A club, eh?" he questioned, straddling a chair and leaning his arms on
the back. "What kind of a club, pleasure club, improvement club,
sporting club, what?"

"That's the trouble; we can't hit on it!" they chorused.

For a moment he sat silent, his round, childish eyes surveying the world
that hung on his very first words.

"I saw a queer thing as I came up the street to-night", he began,
seemingly having forgotten the subject in hand. "A dray-horse was
standing before the mill gat