tudying the new "master of their fate,"
and wondering how they would get along with him. He, in turn, looked
them over carefully. Then he leaned forward and took some papers from
his desk.

"I was expecting you," he said, glancing at two letters he held in his
hand. "Your father wrote me that you would reach here to-day.

"I have also here a letter from your uncle, Mr. Aaron Rushton," he went
on. "He is a very close friend of mine, and I gather that it was through
his suggestion that your father decided to send you here."

Fred murmured an assent, while Teddy's heart sank, as he tried to
imagine what Uncle Aaron had said about him in the letter.

Dr. Rally sat up straight in his chair. It was significant that it was
not an easy revolving chair, but as stiff and perpendicular as the
doctor himself.

"The matter of your studies and assignment to classes," Dr. Rally
continued, "will be looked after by Professor Raymond, my chief
assistant. I will send you to him in a moment. But first, I want to say
one word.

"The discipline of the school is strict, and it must be obeyed.
Sometimes"--here he glanced at Uncle Aaron's letter and then let his
gaze fall on Teddy, who squirmed inwardly--"a boy comes here who thinks
that he is going to run the school. He never makes the same mistake a
second time. That is all."

He gave the boys directions how to find Professor Raymond, and they
found themselves out in the hall, surprised at the briefness of the
interview, but relieved that it was over.

"Say!" exclaimed Fred, "he didn't have so much to say, after all."

"He didn't talk very much, if that is what you mean," corrected Teddy,
who was unusually thoughtful, for him, "but he said a good deal."

"I wonder what Uncle Aaron told him in his letter," mused Teddy. "I'll
bet he just skinned me alive."

"Oh, well, don't you care," Fred consoled him. "Your cake is dough with
Uncle Aaron, and I suppose it will always, unless he finds his watch and
papers."

"Do you suppose he ever will?" asked Teddy, for at least the hundredth
time, and rather wistfully.

"We'll keep on hoping so, anyway," replied Fred. "But here's the room
the doctor told us to go to."

They found Professor Raymond to be a young man, alert and vigorous and
full of snap. He was very friendly and cordial, and the boys liked him
from the start.

He examined the boys as to the point that they had reached in their
studies, and carefully looked over the reports