nd
excitedly to attract attention. His eyes hurt terribly as teacher could
see. Wouldn't it be well for him to go to the school physician? Miss
Brown thought that it would.

Room Ten's door closed upon the prospective invalid. But a few moments
passed before towheaded, lethargic Olaf Johnson voiced his complaint.

"Please, ma'm, my throat, it feels funny here." He placed a pudgy hand
on each side of his jaw. "And this morning when I get up, my head feels
hot."

He, too, was sent to see the school physician.

"Does your nose run?" asked the man of medicines when Perry finished the
catalog of his ailments.

Perry sneezed and admitted that it did.

"Anything else wrong with you?"

"Not exactly, sir;" then with a sudden glibness, "but I don't feel like
doing much. Only loafing around--and my head feels queer."

"Home," ordered the doctor, emphatically. "At least four days. Tell your
mother you've a first-class case of measles developing."

As Perry made his exit, Olaf appeared.

"Another?" exclaimed the physician, as he exchanged a glance with the
gray-haired principal. "Well, what's the matter with you?"

Olaf elaborated upon the symptoms which he had described to Miss Brown.
The young medic was puzzled.

"There are aspects which are not quite consistent," he said to the
principal, "but the soreness suggests mumps. Shall we send him home?"

"As you think best," nodded Mr. Downer. Olaf went the way of the
measles-smitten Perry.

The doctor was picking up his hat and medicine case to leave when the
office door opened again. Two more boys appeared.

"Good heavens!" said he, as he sat down heavily. "Is it an epidemic?"

The principal shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment.

"More mumps." He beckoned to the larger of the two boys. "Now it's your
turn."

The older urchin was sturdily built, with a deep coat of tan on his face
that no city sun had ever bred.

"What's wrong with you?"

The situation was beginning to pall. The position of school doctor,
newly created by the Board of Education at the close of the spring term,
carried no munificent salary. The young practitioner had grasped at the
opening because the routine work offered golden opportunities for
acquiring a clientele among the parents of the various pupils. Now,
almost at the outset, a whole morning had been consumed, and there was
promise of a great deal more work in the future.

There didn't seem to be anything seriously the matter with t