d this
fellow to be telling tales about him? What right had he to be talking
to Colonel Butler, anyway? However, he did not choose to lower his
dignity further by inquiry. He turned as if to leave the station. But
Aleck, who had been turning the matter over carefully in his mind, had
decided that Pen ought to know about the proposed gift of the flag. He
ought not to be permitted, unwittingly, to go on securing
subscriptions to a fund which, by reason of Colonel Butler's proposed
gift, had been made unnecessary. That would be cruel and humiliating.
So, as Pen turned away, he said to him:

"I've put in some work for the flag this afternoon."

"I s'pose so," responded Pen. "But it does not follow that by getting
the first start you'll come out best in the end."

"Maybe not; but I'd like to show you what I've done."

He took the subscription paper from his pocket and began to unfold it.

"Oh," replied Pen, "I don't care what you've done. It's none of my
business. You get your subscriptions and I'll get mine."

Aleck looked for a moment steadily at his opponent. Then he folded up
his paper and put it back into his pocket.

"All right!" he said. "Only don't forget that I offered to show it to
you to-day."

But Pen was both resentful and scornful. He did not propose to treat
his rival's offer seriously, nor to give him the satisfaction of
looking at his paper.

"You can't bluff me that way," he said. "And besides, I'm not
interested in what you're doing."

And he walked around the corner of the station platform and out into
the street.

When Aleck Sands tramped up the hill to school on the following
morning it was with no great sense of jubilation over his success. He
had an uneasy feeling that he had not done exactly the fair thing in
soliciting a subscription from Pen Butler's grandfather. It was, in a
way, trenching on Pen's preserves. But he justified himself on the
ground that he had a perfect right to get his contributions where he
chose. His agency had been conditioned by no territorial limits. And
if, by his diligence, he had outwitted Pen, surely he had nothing to
regret. So far as his failure to disclose to his rival the fact of
Colonel Butler's gift was concerned, that, he felt, was Pen's own
fault. If, by his offensive conduct, the other boy had deprived
himself of his means of knowledge, and had humiliated himself and made
himself ridiculous by procuring unnecessary subscriptions, certainly
he, Alec