stranger, that he forgot entirely to answer to his name,
and was compelled to sit on the chair beside the teacher's desk from
that moment until recess.

That recess seemed longer in coming than any other that the school had
ever known--longer even than that memorable one in which a strolling
trio of Italian musicians had been specially contracted with to begin
playing in the school-yard the moment the boys came down. Finally,
however, the bell rang half past ten, and the whole roomful hurried down
stairs, but not before Mr. Morton had called Joe Appleby, the largest
boy in school, and formally introduced Paul Grayson, with the expressed
wish that he should make his new companion feel at home among the boys.

Appleby went about his work with an air that showed how fully he
realized the importance of his position: he introduced Grayson to every
boy, beginning with the largest; and it was in vain that Benny Mallow,
who was the youngest of the party, made all sorts of excuses to throw
himself in the way of the distinguished couple, even to the extent of
once getting his feet badly mixed up with those of Grayson. When,
however, the ceremony ended, and Appleby was at liberty, so many of the
boys crowded around him, that the new pupil was in some danger of being
lonely.

"Find out for yourselves," was Appleby's dignified and general reply to
his questioners. "I don't consider it gentlemanly to tell everything I
know about a man."

At this rebuke the smaller boys considered Appleby a bigger man than
ever before, but some of the larger ones hinted that Appleby couldn't
very well tell what he didn't know, at which Appleby took offense, and
joined the group of boys who were leaning against a fence, in the shade
of which Will Palmer had already inveigled the new boy into
conversation.

"By-the-way," said Will, "there's time yet for a game or two of ball.
Will you play?"

"Yes, I'll be glad to," said Grayson.

"Who else?" asked Will.

"I!" shouted all of the boys, who did not forget their grammar so far as
to say "Me!" instead. Really, the eagerness of the boys to play ball had
never before been equalled in the memory of any one present, and Will
Palmer cooled off some quite warm friends by his inability to choose
more than two boys to complete the quartette for a common game of ball.
It did the disappointed boys a great deal of good to hear the teacher's
bell ring just as Will Palmer "caught himself in" to Grayson's bat.