he situation was growing desperate. Miss Grey was almost at her wit's
end. Then a bright idea struck her. She thrust the manuscript into
Aleck's hand.

"Oh, Aleck," she exclaimed, "take it and read it!"

He grasped it like the proverbial drowning man, turned it upside down
and right side up, but failed to find the place where he had left off.

[Illustration: Aleck Turned it Upside Down and Rightside Up, But
Failed to Find the Place]

Again the insistent, high-pitched whisper from the rear, breaking
distinctly into the embarrassing silence:

"Can't read it, cause teacher wrote it."

This was the last straw. Slow to wrath as he always was, Aleck had
thus far kept his temper. But this charge filled him with sudden anger
and resentment. He turned his eyes, blazing with fury, toward the boy
by the rear wall, whom he knew was baiting him, and shouted:

"That's a lie, Elmer Cuddeback, and you know it!"

At once confusion reigned. People stood up and looked around to get a
possible glimpse of the object of Aleck's denunciation. Some one
cried: "Put him out!"

Two or three members of the Riverbeds started threateningly toward
Elmer, and his friends struggled to get closer to him. An excitable
woman in the audience screamed. Miss Grey was pounding vigorously with
her gavel, but to no effect. Then Colonel Butler himself took matters
in hand. He rose to his feet, stretched out his arm, and shouted:

"Order! Order! Resume your seats!"

People sat down again. The belligerent boys halted in their tracks.
Everyone felt that the colonel must be obeyed. He waited, in
commanding attitude, until order had been restored, then he continued:

"The young gentleman who undertook to respond to my address was
stricken with what is commonly known as stage-fright. That is no
discredit to him. It is a malady that attacked so great a man and so
brave a warrior as General Grant. I may add that I, myself, have
suffered from it on occasion. And now that order has been restored we
will proceed with the regular program, and Master Sands will finish
the delivery of his address."

He stepped back to give the respondent the floor; but Master Sands was
nowhere in sight. In the confusion he had disappeared. The colonel
looked around him expectantly for a moment, and then again advanced to
the front of the platform.

"In the absence of our young friend," he said, "whose address, I am
sure, would have been received with the approbation it deserv