ey Holbrook had been known ever
since he could remember and to hear himself thus addressed brought to
him a momentarily pleasant feeling, even though Tracey Campbell had
never been a special friend of his. When Findley was younger he had been
so small that some one had called him "Teeny-bits" and the name had
stuck. At the public school in Greensboro, in the village of Hamilton,
in his home, every one called him Teeny-bits, and though the name did
not apply to him now as appropriately as it had applied when he was four
or five years younger, it still fitted him so well that no one
questioned it.

Mr. Stevens smiled as he heard it from Tracey Campbell's lips and
glanced at his young companion. A compact, slim body somewhat under the
average height for seventeen, square shoulders, a very youthful mouth,
eyes that seemed older than the rest of him and light brown, almost
tow-colored hair, were the characteristics of Teeny-bits Holbrook that
Mr. Stevens, the English master, saw. He said to himself that Teeny-bits
was an apt nickname.

There were other characteristics that Mr. Stevens did not see; one of
them revealed itself half an hour after the master had introduced
Teeny-bits to the members of the school who occupied the third-floor
rooms in Gannett Hall. The newcomer found himself possessed of a small
and plain, but comfortable room, in which a bed, a chest of drawers, a
table and two chairs were the chief articles of furniture. It looked out
on the tennis courts and commanded a view of Hamilton village with its
twin church spires sticking up through the trees like white spar-buoys
out of a green sea. It made Teeny-bits a little homesick to look down
there. His thoughts were quickly turned in other directions, however.
Several of the boys came into his room, led by a tall, over-grown fellow
who had been standing on the steps of the hall when Teeny-bits had
entered. He came in at the head of the others, grinning confidently as
if he were looking forward to something that would provide amusement.

"Friends," he said in the stagey sort of voice that a person might use
in talking to an audience, "meet Teeny-bits--that's his name."

The boys behind the leader smiled in a way that suggested something else
about to happen.

"Let me introduce myself," said the tall boy. "I'm Bassett, the Western
Whirlwind, manager of Terrible Turner, the fighting bear-cat."

All of the boys laughed or snickered, and Teeny-bits smiled expe