actice, but Hooker no longer wore his baseball suit,
and he sat on the bleachers with Herbert, the two talking together in
guarded tones. No one paid much attention to them, for most of the
boys held very decided opinions, which were far from favorable, of a
chap who would show the disposition Hooker had so plainly betrayed; and
Rackliff had never revealed an inclination to seek popularity among his
schoolmates.

Roy was the owner of a second-hand motorcycle, which his father had
given him at Christmas time, a present that had filled him with keen
delight and intense satisfaction, in the knowledge that it would cause
him to be envied by less fortunate lads. It was necessary, however, to
tinker a great deal over the machine to keep it in running order, and
the joshing flung at him by the Oakdale lads whenever he had a
breakdown had been anything but balm to his irritable nature.

"Confound the thing!" he cried, after fussing with it a long time one
night, while Rackliff, his creased trousers carefully pulled up to
prevent bagging at the knees, sat on a box near by, in the open door of
the carriage house, smoking cigarettes. "I don't believe it's any
good. The old man got soaked."

"It seems harder work to keep the thing going than to pump an ordinary
bike," said Herbert, "and that's too strenuous for me--though I learned
to ride one once."

"Oh, regular bicycles are back numbers now. I could have a ripping lot
of fun if I could make this machine go. Never saw anything so
contrary. Sometimes it starts off and behaves fine for a little while,
and I think it's all right. Just when I get to thinking that, it kicks
up and leaves me a mile or two away from home, and I have to push or
pedal it back. That's what makes me sore. If I try to sneak in by
some back way somebody is sure to see me and give me the ha-ha."

"Like automobiles," observed Herbert, after letting a little smoke
drift through his nose, "they're all right when they go, and a perfect
nuisance when they don't. Now look at yourself, Roy, old fellow. Your
hands are covered with grease, and you've got a black streak across
your nose, and you're all fretted up."

"Drat the old thing!" snarled Hooker, giving the rear tire a kick.
"It's just simply contrary, that's all. There's only one person in
town who knows anything about gas engines, and he's Urian Eliot's
chauffeur. I suppose I could get him to tinker this contraption up if
I only was chummy