“Will you keep quiet, for a moment, and let the other fellows hear, even if you have to take a walk in order to save your own ears?” demanded Greg, with sarcasm.  “This piece is about Dick Prescott, and he doesn’t sign patent medicine test-----”

“Dick Prescott?” demanded Darrin.  “Whoop!  Let’s have it!”

“It isn’t a roast, is it?” demanded Danny Grin solemnly.

“No; it isn’t,” Greg went on.  “Listen, while I read the headlines.”

It was a four-line heading, beginning with “Dick Prescott’s Fine Nerve.”

“There!  I was afraid it was a roast, after all,” sighed Danny Grin.

“Take that fellow away and muzzle him,” ordered Greg, then proceeded to read the other sections of the headlines.

By this time Greg had a very attentive audience.  Even Tom Reade had ceased to scoff.

“Oh, bosh!” gasped Dick, when Greg was about one third of the way through the column article.

“Isn’t it true?” demanded Dave.

“After a fashion,” Dick admitted.

“Then hold off and be good while the rest of us hear about yesterday’s doings.”

So Dick stood by, his face growing redder and redder as the reading proceeded.

“That’s what I call a dandy story,” declared Greg as he finished reading.

“Dick, why didn’t you tell us something about it last night?” demanded Hazelton.

“What was the use?” asked Prescott.  “And, though I’ve always thought the ‘Blade’ a fine local newspaper, I don’t quite approve of Mr. Pollock’s judgment of news values in this instance.  I suspect that Mr. Pollock must have been away, and that Mr. Bradley, the news editor, ran this in.”

“It sounds like some of Len Spencer’s stuff,” guessed Dave.  “He’s great on local events.”

“If they had to print the yarn, eight or ten lines would have covered it,” Dick declared.  “Fellows, we’ve used up eighteen minutes for our halt, instead of ten.  Come on!”

Greg, however, after rising, and before starting, was careful to fold the “Blade” neatly and to tuck it away in a pocket.  He meant to save that news story.

All of our readers are familiar with the lives and doings of Dick Prescott and his friends up to date.

“Dick & Co.,” as the boys styled their unorganized club of chums, was made up of the six boys, who had been fast friends back in their days of study at the Central Grammar School of Gridley.

They had been together in everything, and notably so in athletics and sports.  All that befell them in their later days at Central Grammar School is told fully in the four volumes of the “Grammar School Boys Series.”

Yet it was when these same boys entered Gridley High School that they came into the fullest measure of their local fame and popularity.  Even as freshmen they found a chance to accomplish far more for school athletics than is usually permitted to freshmen.  It was due to their efforts that athletics were put on a sound financial basis in the Gridley High School.  All this and more is described in the first volume of the “High School Boys Series,” entitled “The High School Freshmen.”