called after him.

Spoff Henderson and Toby Ross were already at the place of appointment.

"Here comes Dick!" called Spoff. "Now, tell us."

"Wait until the crowd gets here." returned Prescott.

"Ain't you the mean one?" growled Toby. "And we ran all the way
home and back."

"Too much hurry is said to be one of the greatest American sins,"
laughed Dick.

"Well, you're going to tell us, anyway, aren't you?" pressed Spoff.

"Yes; but give the crowd a chance to get here."

Dave and Dan came along, then Tom, Harry and Greg. Tolman and
a few other fellows hurried up.

"You might tell us all about that business, now," suggested Tolman.

"I see some more fellows coming up the street," Prescott replied.
"I don't have to tell more than once."

Five minutes later there were more than thirty boys at the corner,
and still others were in sight, coming from both ways.

"Say, get busy, Prescott!" called some of the newer corners.

"Let the crowd all get here," Dick insisted.

Presently the crowd numbered more than fifty a lot of their elders,
seeing such an unusual crowd of youths on one corner, halted curiously
near by. Then Reporter Len Spencer came along.

"What's all the excitement?" demanded Len, ever keen for local
news. One of the boys exclaimed to him what was in the wind.

"Then you'd better hurry up with your statement, Dick," Len advised.
"There'll be a riot here soon."

"Five o'clock was the time named," Prescott rejoined.

Just then the town clock began to strike.

"It's five o'clock now, Dick," called Greg.

"Yes," nodded Dick, "and I'm ready at last to redeem my promise."

"He's going to tell us!"

"Hurrah!"

"Shut up! We want to hear."

"You are all assembled here," Prescott continued, "to hear just
what it was that the man on the clubhouse steps said."

"Cut out the end-man explanations. Give us the kernel!" shouted
one boy.

"What the man on the clubhouse steps said," Dick went ahead, "should
be a model to everyone. It is of especial value to all who are tempted
to talk too fast and then to think an hour later."

"Yes, but what _did_ he say---the man on the clubhouse steps?" howled
Harry Hazelton.

"You will know, in a minute," Dick assured his hearers. "Yet,
before telling you, I want to impress upon you that, whenever
you are tempted to be angry, to be harsh in judgments, or when
you can think only ill of your neighbor, then you should always
hark back to just what the man on