ditorial written I shall call upon you."

"May I read it?" asked Percival.

The editor passed the sheet over to the boy who read it most carefully
and then said:

"Great, my boy! We have long wanted a good editor for our Academy paper
and the position is yours. If I say so every boy in Hilltop will agree
with me, so it is settled."

CHAPTER X

AN INTERVIEW IN THE WOODS

Dick Percival was as good as his word and lost no time in telling the
Hilltop boys that he had found an ideal editor for the monthly magazine
conducted in the interests of the Academy and contributed to by the
brightest minds among them.

The majority agreed that Jack would make a better editor but there were
some who opposed this choice, not openly but in a sneering, underhand
way that was harder to combat than if they had put on an attitude of
bold defiance.

"You don't want a mere clerk for an editor," said Peter Herring to a
number of his cronies. "If we did we could hire a six-dollar-a-week
typewriter girl to do the work. Any one can work a machine with a little
practice but it takes brains to run a high-class magazine like ours."

"How much do you contribute to it, Pete?" asked Merritt, with a half
laugh.

"Well, I contribute to the expense of the publication and I am not going
to have my money wasted," retorted the other angrily.

"So do all the boys contribute. You don't have to pat yourself on the
back for that."

"Well, do you want this upstart to be editor?" snarled Herring, annoyed
at these interruptions and yet not wishing to pick a quarrel with one
who was useful to him at times.

"No, of course I don't but you don't need to make a fool of yourself for
all that. You are no better than the rest of us."

"I don't say I am and I don't make a fool of myself. What is the matter
with you anyhow?"

"Never mind bickering, you two," said one of the group. "What we want to
get at is to keep Sheldon out of the paper, isn't it?"

"Of course!" said all the rest.

"Then get to work and do it."

"Leave it to me," said Herring in a mysterious tone. "I'll fix it all
right, never fear."

The preparation of the next number of the _Hilltop Gazette_ was begun
under the direction of Jack Sheldon, however, Dick, Harry and a few more
assisting him in the selection and arrangement of articles and the
opposition of Herring and his satellites seemed to have ceased.

Jack had made arrangements with the editor of the _News_ to furnish