s came along, and jumped right in and grabbed
hold of Georgie to pull him off the wire. They said that when the
current hit him it was like being kicked by a horse. He went clean
across the street and banged his head an awful whack on the curb. He got
up sort of groggy, but he must have been a game one, for he came right
back, wrapped some newspapers around his hands, and had Georgie loose
in a jiffy!"

"Great!" came in an appreciative chorus. Then one of the third-grade boys
piped up curiously. "But what good was the newspaper?"

"Insulation, of course," spoke up Sherman Ward, from the outskirts of
the group. He was tall enough to look over the heads of most of the
fellows, and spoke with a certain authority. "If he hadn't used them he'd
have got the shock as he did the first time. That's some idea, though,
fellows. I don't believe I'd have remembered, right off the bat, that
paper was a non-conductor. Who was he, Court?"

"Nobody knows; that's the funny part of it." Court thrust back a dangling
lock of brown hair with a characteristic gesture. "It was pretty near
dark, and everybody was excited, and all that, Mrs. Warren told Dad
when he was over this morning. She said she only noticed that he wasn't
so very tall and carried his papers in a bag over one shoulder. She
forgot all about him till after they'd got the kid into the house
and the doctor had come. Then when she sent somebody out to see, the
chap had gone."

At once the throng of boys was plunged into a fever of interested
speculation. The idea of an unknown appearing suddenly out of the
darkness, doing his spectacular stunt, and slipping away again without
revealing himself appealed tremendously to the imagination. The fact
that he was a boy and quite possibly one of themselves vastly increased
the interest. One after another the various fellows with paper routes
were suggested, but for the most part as quickly dismissed. One was
too tall, another delivered in a different part of town, two more were
part of the present assemblage and reluctantly denied any connection
with the affair.

"Maybe it was that fellow Tompkins," doubtfully suggested Bob Gibson,
when most of the other possibilities had been exhausted. "He goes past
Pine Street, doesn't he?"

A sudden low laugh touched with scorn, from the outskirts of the circle,
turned all eyes to where Ranny Phelps leaned against the iron railing.

"You're quite a joker, aren't you, Bob?" commented the blond