* * * * *

Skippy sat down and glared at the Roman.

Some day, some day he would even institute a fund for superannuated
teachers, he would! He would come back some day to the school he had
made the greatest in the country; he would come as the BENEFACTOR and
then the Roman, old, and decrepit in a wheeled chair, would be brought
to him, to him, John C. Bedelle, whom as a boy he had held up to the
ridicule of the class! What a revenge that would be, the proud and
haughty Roman, the greatest flunker of them all, the Roman of the
caustic tongue and the all-seeing eye, actually clinging to his hand,
stammering out his thanks . . . the Roman whose mocking voice still
echoed in his memory, "Don't dream, John, don't do it!"

CHAPTER XV

THE TENNESSEE SHAD SUSPECTS

THE Tennessee Shad, as has been told, was long, thin and full of bones.
His imagination was chiefly occupied in initiating ideas which would be
the cause of exertion in others. In the warmth of the budding season he
came out of his winter cage and could be seen for long hours perched on
his window sill in the Kennedy, legs pendent; like some dreamy vulture,
surveying the horizon for a significant point.

There was little that escaped the Shad. For some time his curiosity had
been stirred by the unusual attentions paid to Skippy Bedelle by his old
side-partner, Doc Macnooder. Doc was eminently practical and if Doc
devoted any part of his time to an inconsequential underformer, in the
language of the day, there was something doing.

The early visits of Macnooder to Skippy's room at the time of the Foot
Regulator campaign had been noted, likewise the subsequent cooling of
the affection. So when after a few weeks' lapse Macnooder was again seen
impelling Skippy in the direction of the Jigger Shop with a protecting
arm over his shoulders, the Tennessee Shad whistled softly through his
teeth and said to himself:

"I wonder what new flim-flam game is on?"

Now Macnooder was distinctly a trespasser, for Macnooder belonged to the
Dickinson and Skippy was of the Kennedy and, by that token, his lawful
prize. The Tennessee Shad's vigilance redoubled. He began to note the
air of mystery and solemnity which hung over the two roommates, their
frequent whisperings and the moments of intense excitement when, with
locked arms and heads close together, they drew surreptitiously away
from their fellows for secret conclave. When presently