“Young Prescott!  Bless my soul!” murmured Dr. Thornton.  “Why are the football team making such a row over that young freshman?”

In another instant the principal’s question all but answered itself.

“Why, I wonder,” muttered the good doctor, “if the enthusiasm in any way relates to the hoax on the Board.  Was Prescott at the bottom of it?  I’ll keep it in mind and try to find out!”

“If the football crew are making all that row over a mere freshman,” thought Chairman Stone, “then young Prescott must be the inventor of the yarn that has made Gridley wonder whether we of the Board are so many ‘dead ones.’  Hm! hm!  I’ll find out if that’s the case.  Such a trick is clearly one that would call for expelling the young man from the High School!”

CHAPTER IV

CAPTION OF THE HOUNDS

“Is that mucker going to run today?”

The questioner was Fred Ripley, and his voice was full of disgust.  He glared at Dick Prescott, who was seated unconcernedly on a stone wall, awaiting the arrival of Tom Reade and Dan Dalzell, the only other members of Dick & Co. who were to figure in today’s event.

“Is who going to run?” asked Ben Badger.

“That little mucker, Prescott?” insisted Fred.

“Yes,” returned Badger, shortly.

“Gridley H.S. is getting worse and worse,” growled Ripley.  “Athletics ought to be confined to the best sort of fellows in the school.  These little muckers, these nobodies, ought to be kept out of everything in which the real fellows take part.”

“Don’t be a cad, Ripley,” retorted Badger, half angrily.

“Oh, I’m no great stickler for caste, and that sort of thing,” Fred grumbled on.  “I’m democratic enough, when it comes to that, and I associate with a good many fellows whose fathers don’t stand as high in the community as mine does.”

“That’s really kind of you,” mimicked Ben Badger, with another look of disgust at the rich lawyer’s son.  “Of course, you feel just as though anything that your father may have accomplished puts you in a rather more elect lot.”

“Of course, it does,” retorted Fred, drawing himself up stiffly.  “Still, you know as well as anyone does, Badger, that I’m not stuck up just on account of family or position.  I’m ready to give the friend’s hand to any of the right sort of fellows.  But what is that little mucker, Prescott?  His parents peddle books and newspapers.”

“They run a book and periodical shop, if that is what you mean,” rejoined Ben, disgustedly, as he looked the young snob over for the third time.  “Some mighty big people have done that in times past.  As to position, Prescott’s father isn’t a rich man, nor a very successful one, but I wish I could look forward, some day, to being half as well educated as Dick’s father is.”

“A dreamer, a fool, a man who couldn’t and didn’t succeed,” sneered Fred.  “And his son will be a bigger mistake in life.  I don’t have anything to do with that kind of people and their friends.”