ere,
old man. Do! You'll find yourself flanked by friends. If any
fellow looks at you cross-eyed at the junior dance, the eleven
will throw him out through a window!"

Dick looked more wistful than ever. He had never had many lessons
in dancing, but he took to the art naturally. Had life been happier
for him just then he would have been glad to take up the invitation.
Besides, Dave Darrin had told him that Laura Bentley was invited
and meant to go.

"Now, you'll come along, of course," asked Thompson, coaxingly.

"No-o-o," hesitated Dick, "I don't believe I shall."

"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."

Gridley H.S. won both games by the skin of their teeth.

"We can't succeed much longer without our mascots," Thompson declared
impressively before all the members of Dick & Co. The six freshmen,
walking along the street together had been rounded up and haled
into the store where the football squad held its "club" meetings.

"Humph! I'd be a poor mascot for any body," muttered Dick. "I
haven't been able to bring even myself good luck."

"You just come to a game once, all six of you," begged Ben Badger.
"Then you'll see how we can pile up the score over the enemy!
Don't let it get out of your heads that you're our real, sure