.

"Why, let's boycott him altogether," said Grant, eagerly. "Let's put all
the fellows against him and show him up for just what he is. If he sees
nobody speaks to him he'll soon come down from his high horse. What do
you say to it, fellows?"

Instead of making any immediate reply in words, his companions at first
gave him looks of incredulity and amazement, and then burst into loud
peals of laughter. It was some time before they sobered down.

"What?" demanded Shriver. "Boycott Alan Heathcote? Send him to Coventry?
Ha! ha! Why, you'd have the heaviest contract on your hands you ever had
in your life. It's all nonsense."

"There's not a fellow in the whole school who would be fool enough to
join you," said Archer, plainly and in disgust. "Why, you might as well
try that scheme on Cole or Mr. Nicholson. No, no, my dear boy, that plan
of yours won't work. The fellows, as a rule, like Heathcote pretty well.
He attends to his own business, stands well in his class, or will when
the next exam. takes place, and to add to it all he's as fleet of foot
as a deer on the foot-ball field; so you would be the solitary duck in
the puddle if you tried to freeze him out."

Grant Mackerly listened to these responses of his friends in silence.
Then his face assumed a determined look, and without another word to
either of them he turned away and walked quickly out of the door to the
campus and disappeared among the trees.

"Mad as a hornet," observed Archer, carelessly.

"He'll cool down by to-morrow," remarked Shriver.

And they went into the recitation-room talking it over.

CHAPTER XXVI.

RIPLEY FALLS INVADES THE TOWN.

The story of Grant Mackerly's attempt to place a boycott on Alan soon
leaked out among the boys, and great was the merriment it aroused at the
Hall.

In the ridicule and disgust which the incident produced the prestige of
the rich man's son was lost forever. No one pitied him. It was all his
own fault, and even his quondam friends deserted him, while his
appearance would have been the signal for a universal grin.

Strange to say, he had not been seen at the Hall since he had made that
proposition to Archer and Shriver, and now a couple of days had passed
and no sign of him.

He did not respond to his name either in the assembly or
recitation-rooms, and Doctor Bostwick began to think something was
wrong.

He summoned Lewis Archer one day in passing and asked him if he could
call at the Mackerly res