The boys bowed, wondering what was coming.  Lawyer Ripley thereupon plunged into a narration of the happenings of the day before, telling it all with a lawyer’s exactness of statement.

“And now I will ask you,” wound up Mr. Ripley, “whether you can tell me anything about the hold that Scammon seems to have exercised over my son?”

“That’s an embarrassing question, sir,” Dick replied, after there had been a long pause.

“Do you know the nature of that hold?”

“Yes, sir.”

“May I ask how you know?”

“I overheard a conversation, one night, between your son and Tip Scammon.”

“What was the substance of that conversation?” pressed the lawyer.

“I don’t quite see how I can tell you, sir,” Dick responded slowly and painfully.  “I’m not a tale bearer.  I don’t want to come here and play the tittle-tattle on your son.”

“I respect your reluctance,” nodded Lawyer Ripley.  “But let me put it to you another way.  I am the boy’s father.  I am responsible for his career in this world, as far as anyone but himself can be responsible.  I am also seeking what is for the boy’s best good.  I cannot act intelligently unless I have exact facts.  Both my son and Scammon are too stubborn to tell me anything.  In the cause of justice, Prescott, will you answer me frankly?”

“That word, ‘justice,’ has an ominous sound, sir,” Prescott answered.  “It is generally connected with the word punishment, instead of with the word mercy.”

“I suspect that my son has been your very bitter enemy, Prescott,” said the lawyer keenly.  “I suspect that he has plotted against you and all your chums.  Would you now try to shield him from the consequences of such acts?”

“Why, sir, I think any boy of seventeen is young enough to have another chance.”

“And I agree with you,” cried the lawyer, a sudden new light shining in his eyes.  “Now, will you be wholly frank with me if I promise you that my course toward my son will be one that will give him every chance to do better if he wants to?”

“That’s an odd bargain to have to make with a father,” smiled Dick.

“It is,” admitted Lawyer Ripley, struck by the force of the remark.  “You’ve scored a point there, Prescott.  Well, then, since I am the boy’s father, and since I want to do him full justice on the side of mercy, if he’ll have it—–­will you tell all of the truth that you know to that boy’s father?”

Dick glanced around at his chums.  One after another they nodded.  Then the High School pitcher unburdened himself.  Tip Scammon sat up and took keen notice.  When Dick had finished with all he knew, including the tripping with the pole, and the soft-soaping of the sidewalk before his home door, Tip was ready to talk.

“I done ’em all,” he admitted, “includin’ the throwin’ of the brickbats.  The brickbats was on my own hook, but the pole and the soft soap was parts of the jobs me and Fred put up between us.”