Like lightning B.J. dropped face down on the ice, and the boat passed harmlessly over him, the runner just grazing his coat-sleeve.

Having inflicted what seemed to it to be punishment enough, the Greased Lightning sailed coquettishly on down the lake, and finally banged into a dock at home, and stopped.  B.J. and Reddy made off after it as fast as they could on the slippery ice with the help of the wind at their backs; but they never overtook it, and the run served them only the good turn of warming them somewhat, and thus saving them from all the dire consequences they deserved for their foolhardiness.

When Reddy reached home, he found that Heady had preceded him.  Both were put to bed and dosed with such bitter medicine that they almost forgot the miseries they had had upon the lake.  But it was many a day before they would consent to speak to B.J.

When they saw him coming they crossed the street with great dignity, and if he spoke to them they seemed stricken with a sudden deafness.

B.J.’s troubles did not end with his return home; for, somehow or other, the escapade with the ice-boat reached his father’s ears.  And it is reported that B.J.’s father forgot for a few minutes the fact that his son was now a dignified academician.  At any rate, B.J. took his meals standing for a day or two, and he could not explain this strange whim to the satisfaction of his friends.

* * * * *

Every member of the Dozen realized the necessity of keeping the body clean if he would be a successful athlete, and of keeping his linen and clothes comely if he would be a successful gentleman.  Taken altogether, the Twelve were exactly what could be called “neat but not gaudy.”  But presentable as all of them were, there was none that took so much pains and pride in the elegances of dress as the boy Pretty, who won his title from his fondness for being what the others sometimes called a dude.  But he was such a whole-hearted, vigorous, athletic young fellow, with so little foolishness about his make-up, that the name did not carry with it the insult it usually conveys.

The chief offense Pretty gave to the less careful of the Dozen was his fondness for carrying a cane, a practice which the rest of the boys, being boys, did not affect.  But Pretty was not to be dissuaded from this, nor from any of his other foibles, by ridicule, and the others finally gave him up in despair.

When he went to Kingston there was a new audience for his devotion to matters of dress.  But at the Academy it was considered a breach of respect to the upper-classmen for the lower-classmen to carry canes.  Pretty, however, simply sniffed at the tradition, and said it didn’t interest him at all.

Finally a large Senior vowed he would crack the cane in pieces over Pretty’s head, if necessary.

Pretty heard these threats, and was prepared for the man.  When the fatal moment of their meeting arrived, though the Senior was much bigger than Pretty, the Lakerim youth did not run—­at least, he ran no farther than was necessary to clear a good space for the use of a little single-stick exercise.