Chapter I.

THE PRINCIPAL HEARS SOMETHING ABOUT"PENNIES"

Clang!

"Attention, please."

The barely audible droning of study ceased promptly in the big assembly room of the Gridley High School.

The new principal, who had just stepped into the room, and who now stood waiting behind his flat-top desk on the platform, was a tall, thin, severe-looking man of thirty-two or three.

For this year Dr. Carl Thornton, beloved principal for a half-score of years, was not in command at the school. Ill health had forced the good old doctor to take at least a year's rest, and this stranger now sat in the Thornton chair.

"Mr. Harper,"almost rasped out Mr. Cantwell's voice,"stop rustling that paper."

Harper, a little freshmen, who had merely meant to slip the paper inside his desk, and who was not making a disturbing noise thereby, flushed pink and sat immobile, the paper swinging from one hand.

From the principal's attitude and his look of seriousness, something unusual was pending. Some of the girls permitted their apprehension to be seen. On the faces of several of the boys rested a look of half defiance, for this principal was unpopular, and, by the students, was considered unjust.

"It being now in the early part of December,"went on Mr. Cantwell,"we shall, on Monday, begin rehearsing the music for the special exercises to be held in this school on the day before Christmas. To that end, each of you found, on returning from recess, the new Christmas music on your desk."

Mr. Cantwell paused an instant for this important information to sink in. Several slight, little sighs of relief escaped the students, especially from the girls'side of the great room. This speech did not presage anything very dreadful to come.

"This sheet music,"continued Mr. Cantwell,"is to be sold to the pupils at cost to the Board of Education. This cost price is fifteen cents."

Again Mr. Cantwell paused. It was a trick of his, a personal peculiarity. Then be permitted himself a slight smile as he added:

"This being Friday, I will ask you all to be sure to bring, on Monday morning, the money, which you will pay to me. Don't forget, please; each of you bring me his little fifteen pennies. Now, return to your studies until the beginning of the fourth period is announced."

As he bent his head low behind a bulky textbook, Dan Dalzell, of the sophomore class, glanced over at Dick Prescott with sparkling mischief gleaming in his eyes.

Dick, who was now a sophomore, and one of the assured leaders in sports and fun, guessed that Dan Dalzell was hatching another of the wild schemes for which Dalzell was somewhat famous. Dick even guessed that he knew about what was passing in Dan's mind.

Though moderate whispering was permitted, at need, in the assembly room, there was no chance for Dick and Dan to pass even a word at this time, for almost immediately the bell for the fourth period of the morning's work sounded, and the sections rose and filed out to the various recitation rooms.

To readers of the preceding volume in this series, Dick & Co. will need no introduction. All six of the youngsters were very well introduced in"The High School Freshmen."

Such readers will remember their first view of Dick & Co. With brown-haired Dick Prescott as leader, the other members of this unique firm of High School youngsters, were Tom Reade, Dan Dalzell, Harry Hazelton, Gregory Holmes and Dave Darrin.

The six had been chums at the Central Grammar School, and had stuck together like burrs through the freshman year at the Gridley High School. In fact, even in their freshmen period, when new students are not expected to have much to say, and are given no chance at the school athletics, Dick & Co. had made themselves abundantly felt.

Our readers will recall how the Board of Education had some notion of prohibiting High School football, despite the fact that the Gridley H.S. eleven was one of the best in the United States. Readers will also recall the prank hatched by Dick & Co., by means of which the Board was quickly shown how unpopular such a move would be in the city.

Our readers will also recollect that, though freshmen were barred from active part in sports, yet Dick & Co. found the effective way of raising plentiful funds for the Athletics Committee. In the annual paper chase the freshmen hounds, under Dick Prescott's captaincy, beat the sophomore hares—-for the first time in many years. In the skating events, later on, Dick and his chums captured, for the freshman class, three of the eight events. From the start, Dick & Co. had shown great ingenuity in"boosting"football, in return for which, many of the usual restrictions on freshmen were waived where Dick & Co. were concerned.

In the nearly three months, now, that the new school year had gone along, Dick & Co. had proved that, as sophs, they were youngsters of great importance in the student body. They were highly popular with most of their fellow-students; but of course that very popularity made them some enemies among those who envied or disliked them.

For one thing, neither Dick nor any of his partners came of families of any wealth. Yet it was inevitable that some of the boys and girls of Gridley H.S. should come from families of more or less wealth.

It is but fair to say that most of these scions of the wealthier families were agreeable, affable and democratic—-in a word, Americans without any regard to the size of the family purse.

A few of the wealthier young people, however, made no secret of their dislike for smiling, happy, capable Dick & Co. One of the leaders in this feeling was Fred Ripley, son of a wealthy, retired lawyer.

During the skating events of the preceding winter, Dick Prescott, aided by his chums, had saved the life of Ripley, who had gone through thin ice. However, so haughty a young man as Fred Ripley, though he had been slightly affected by the brave generosity, could not quite bring himself to regard Dick as other than an interloper in High School life.

Ripley had even gone so far as to bribe Tip Scammon, worthless, profligate son of the honest old janitor of the High School, to commit a series of robberies from the locker rooms in the school basement while Dick carried the key as monitor there. The"plunder"had been found in Dick's own room at home, and the young man had been suspended from the High School for a while. Thanks, however, to Laura Bentley and Belle Meade, two girls then freshmen and now sophs, Tip had been run down. Then the police made Tip confess, and he was sent away to the penitentiary for a short term. Tip, however, refused to the last to name his accomplice. Dick knew that Ripley was the accomplice, but kept his silence, preferring to fight all his own battles by himself.

So Fred Ripley was now a junior, in good standing as far as scholarship and school record went.

So far, during this new year, Ripley had managed to smother his hatred for Dick & Co., especially for Dick himself.

Lessons and recitations on this early December morning went off as usual. In time the hands of the clock moved around to one o'clock in the afternoon, at which time the High School closed for the day.

The partners of Dick & Co. went down the steps of the building and all soon found their way through the surging crowds of escaped students. This sextette turned down one of the streets and trudged along together. At first several of the other High School boys walked along near them. Finally, however, the crowd thinned away until only Dick & Co. were together.

"Dan,"said Dick, smilingly,"something struck you hard this morning, when Mr. Cantwell asked us all to bring the music-money on Monday."

"He didn't say exactly'money,'"retorted Dan Dalzell, quickly."What Prin. did say was that each one of us was to bring fifteen

pennies."

"Yes, I remember,"laughed Dick.

"Now, we couldn't have held that mob when school let out,"pursued Dan."And now it's too late. But say, if the Prin. had only sprung that on us before recess——-"

"We ll, suppose he had?"interrupted Greg Holmes, a trifle impatiently.

"Why, then,"retorted Dan, mournfully,"we could have passed word around, at recess, to have everybody bring just what the Prin. called for—- pennies!"

"Hm!"grinned Dave Darrin, who was never slow to see the point of anything."Then you had a vision of the unpopular Prin. being swamped under a deluge of pennies—-plain, individual little copper cents?"

"That's it!"agreed Dan."But now, we won't see more than a few before we go to school again Monday. Oh—-wow! What a chance that takes away from us. Just imagine the Prin. industriously counting away at thousands of pennies, and a long line of boy and girl students in line, each one waiting to pass him another handful of pennies! Say, can you see the Prin.—-just turning white and muttering to himself? But there's no chance to get the word around, now!"

"We don't need to get the word around,"smiled Dick."If we passed the word around, it might get to the Prin.'s ears before Monday, and he'd hatch up some way to head us off."

"If you can see how to work the trick at this late hour, you can see further than I can,"muttered Dan, rather enviously.

"Oh, Dick has the scheme hatching, or he wouldn't talk about it,"declared Dave Darrin, confidently.

"Why, if all you want is to send the whole student body on Monday morning, each with fifteen copper cents to hand the Prin., that can be fixed up easily enough,"Dick pronounced, judicially.

"How are we going to do it?"asked Dalzell, dubiously.

"We ll, let us see how many pennies would be needed? The re are close to two hundred and fifty students, but a few might refuse to go into the trick. Let us say two hundred and forty times

fifteen. That's thirty-six hundred, isn't it? That means we want to get thirty-six dollars'worth of pennies. We ll, we'll get them!"

"We will?"demanded Dan, with a snort."Dick, unless you've got more cash on hand than the rest of us then I don't believe a dragnet search of this crowd would turn up two dollars. Thirty-six? That's going some and halfway back!"

"The re are three principal ways of buying goods of any kind,"

Dick continued."One way is with cash——-"

"That's the street we live on!"broke in Harry Hazelton, with a laugh.

"The second way,"Dick went on,"is to pay with a check. But you must have cash at the bank behind the check, or you get into trouble. Now the third way is to buy goods on credit."

"That's just as bad,"protested Dan."Where, in the whole town, could a bunch of youngsters like us, get thirty-six dollars'worth of real credit?"

"I can,"declared Dick, coolly.

"You? Where? With your father?"

"No; Dad rarely takes in much in the way of pennies. I don't suppose he has two dollars'worth of pennies on hand at any time. But, fellows, you know that'The Morning Blade'is a one cent paper. Now, the publisher of'The Blade'must bank a keg of pennies every day in the week. I can see Mr. Pollock, the editor, this afternoon, right after luncheon. He has probably sent most of the pennies to bank today, but I'll ask him if he'll have to-morrow's pennies saved for us."

"Say, if he'll only do that!"glowed Dan, his eyes flashing.

"He will,"declared Dave Darrin."Mr. Pollock will do anything, within reason, that Dick asks."

"Now, fellows, if I can put this thing through, we can meet in my room to-morrow afternoon at one o'clock. Pennies come in rolls of fifty each, you know. We'll have to break up the rolls, and make new ones, each containing fifteen pennies."

Dave Darrin stopped where he was, and began to laugh. Tom Reade quickly joined in. The others were grinning.

"Oh, say, just for one look at Prin.'s face, if we can spring that job on him!"chuckled Harry Hazelton.

"We can,"announced Dick, gravely."So go home and enjoy your dinners, fellows. If you want to meet on the same old corner on Main Street, at half-past two to-day, we'll go in a body to'The Blade'office and learn what Mr. Pollock has to say about our credit."

"Your credit, you mean,"corrected Dave.

After dinner Dick & Co. met as agreed. Arrived at"The Blade"office it was decided that Dick Prescott should go in alone to carry on the negotiation. He soon came out again, wearing a satisfied smile and carrying a package under one arm.

"If I'm any good at guessing,"suggested Dave,"you put the deal over."

"Mr. Pollock agreed, all right,"nodded Dick."I have fourteen dollars here. He'll let us have the rest to-morrow."

They hurried back to Dick's room, over the bookstore that was run by Mr. and Mrs. Prescott.

"Whew, but this stuff is heavy,"muttered Dick, dumping the package on the table."Mr. Pollock sent out to the pressroom and had some paper cut of just the size that we shall need for wrappers."

"Did you tell Pollock what we are going to do?"asked Greg Holmes.

"Not exactly, but he guessed that some mischief was on. He wanted to know if it was anything that would make good local reading in'The Blade,'so I told him I thought it would be worth a paragraph or two, and that I'd drop around Monday afternoon and give him the particulars. That was all I said."

Inside the package were three"sticks"of the kind that are used for laying the little coins in a row before wrapping.

"Now, one thing we must be dead careful about, fellows,"urged Dick, as he undid the package,"is to be sure that we get an exact fifteen coins in each wrapper. If we got in more, we'd be the losers. If we put less than fifteen cents in any wrapper, then we're likely to be accused of running a swindling game."

So every one of the plotters was most careful to count the coins. It was not rapid work, and only half the partners could work at any one time. They soon caught the trick of wrapping, however, and then the little rolls began to pile up.

Saturday afternoon Dick & Co. were similarly engaged. Nor did they find the work too hard. Americans will endure a good deal for the sake of a joke.

Monday morning, shortly after half-past seven, Dick and his chums had stationed themselves along six different approaches to the High School. Each young pranker had his pockets weighted down with small packages, each containing fifteen pennies.

Purcell, of the junior class, was the first to pass Dick Prescott.

"Hullo, Purcell,"Dick greeted the other, with a grin."Want to see some fun?"

"Of course,"nodded the junior."What's going?"

"You remember that Prin. asked us, last Friday, to bring in our fifteen pennies for the Christmas music?"

"Of course. We ll, I have my money in my pocket."

"In pennies?"insisted Dick.

"We ll, no; of course not. But I have a quarter, and I guess Prin. can change that."

Dick quickly explained the scheme. Purcell, with a guffaw, purchased one of the rolls.

"Now, see here,"hinted Dick,"there'll be such a rush, soon, that we six can't attend to all the business. Won't you take a dozen rolls and peddle them? I'll charge'em to you, until you can make an Accounting."

Purcell caught at the bait with another laugh. Dick noted Purcell's name on a piece of paper, with a dollar and eighty cents charged against it.

All the other partners did the same with other students. With such a series of pickets out around the school none of the student body got through without buying pennies, except Fred Ripley and Clara Deane. They were not asked to buy.

Meanwhile, up in the great assembly room a scene was going on that was worth looking at.