urged Dick, quietly.
"He's dangerous. You've heard him! He's plotting assassination!"

"Undertakers don't assassinate anyone, do they?" queried Dan,
with an air of mock innocence.

"What _are_ you plotting, then?" insisted Dick.

Dan's face broadened into a very pronounced grin.

"Why, see here, fellows, there seems to be some fire behind Dr.
Thornton's smoke that the Board of Education may get excited over
low recitation marks, and actually---_stop football_!" finished
Dalzell, in a gasp.

The other five chums snorted. Dan Dalzell was presently able
to control his feelings sufficiently to proceed:

"No one but actually dead ones would expect an American institution
of the higher learning to exist in these days without football.
Hence, if the Grannies' Club---I mean the School Board---are
planning to stop football, or even believe that it is possible,
then they're sure enough dead ones. Am I right?"

"Right and sane, after all," nodded Dick.

"Therefore," pursued Dan, "if the board members are dead ones,
why not go ahead and bury them? Or, at the least, show our kindly
interest in that direction. See here, fellows"---here Dan lowered
his voice to the faintest sort of whisper, while the other partners
gathered close about him---"tonight we fellows can scatter over
the town, and drop into different telephone booths where we're
not known. We can call up seven different undertakers, convey
to them a hint that there's a dead one at the Board Room, and
state that the victim of our call is wanted there at once.

"What good would that do?" demanded Dick, after a thoughtful pause.

"Why," proposed Dan Dalzell, "if seven undertakers call, all within
five minutes, won't it be a delicate way of conveying the hint
that a Board of Education that thinks it can stop football is
composed of dead ones? You see, there'll be an undertaker for
each member of the Board. Don't you think the idea---the hint---would
soak through even those seven dull old heads?"

Tom, Harry and Dave began to chuckle, though they looked puzzled.

"Well, if you ask _me_," decided Dick, after more thought, "I have
just one answer. The scheme is too grisly. Besides, we've nothing
against the undertakers that should make us willing to waste their
time. Moreover, Dan we're in the High School, and we're expected
to be gentlemen. Now, does your scheme strike you as just the
prank for a lot of gentlemen."

"Say, don't look the thing over to