me
brain caliber."

"What did you tell him? asked Bert Dodge, frowning.

"I couldn't tell him much," retorted Hudson, smiling wearily.
"Dad was primed to do most of the talking. When he stopped for
breath mother began."

"It's all that confounded Dick Prescott's doings! It's a shame!
It's a piece of anarchy---that's what it is!" muttered Paulson.
"On my way here I passed three men on the street. They looked
at me pretty hard, and laughed after I had gone by. Fellows,
are we going to allow that mucker, Dick Prescott, to make us
by-words in this town?"

"No siree, no!" roared Fremont.

"Good! That's what I like to hear," put in Hudson dryly. "And
what are we going to do to stop Dick Prescott and turn public
opinion our ways"

"Why-----"

"We-----"

"The way to-----"

"We'll-----"

Several spoke at once, then all came to a full stop. The "soreheads"
looked at each other in puzzled silence.

"What are we going to do?" demanded Fremont. "How are we going
to hit back at a fellow who has a newspaper that he can use as
a club on your head?"

"We might have a piece put in 'The Evening Mail,'" hinted Porter,
after a dazed silence. "That's the rival paper."

"Yes!" chimed in Bayliss, eagerly. "We can write a piece and
get it put in 'The Mail.' Our piece can say that there has been
a tendency, this year, or was believed to be one, to get a rowdyish
element of the High School into the High School eleven, and that
our move was really a move intended to sustain the past reputation
of the Gridley High School for gentlemanly playing in all school
sports. That will hit Dick & Co., and a lot of others, and will
turn the laugh back on the muckers."

This proposition brought forth several eager cries of approval.

"I see just one flaw in the plan," observed Hudson slowly.

"What is it?" demanded half a dozen at once.

"Why, 'The Evening Mail' is a paper designed to appeal to the more
rowdyish element in Gridley politics. 'The Mail's' circulation is
about all among the class of people who come nearest to being
'rowdyish.' So I'm pretty certain, fellows, that 'The Mail' wouldn't
take up our cause, and hammer our enemies with the word 'rowdy.' 'The
Blade' is the paper that circulates among the best people in Gridley."

"And Dick Prescott writes for 'The Blade'!"

A gloomy silence followed, broken by Bayliss's disconsolate query:

"Then, hang it! What can we do?"

And that query stuck hard!