“It’s worth the time it has cost you,” Dick urged.

“Rush him fellows!” bawled Toby Ross.  “Don’t let him escape!”

Indeed, there was no time or chance for getting away.  Dick Prescott was rushed, caught and pinned.

“What’ll we do with him?” rose the chorus.

“To the fountain!  Duck him!”

With a cheer the boys started, carrying Dick along on the shoulders of a few tightly-wedged boys.

Dick’s chums made no effort to rescue him.  Indeed, perhaps they felt that he deserved what was right ahead of him.  But they ran along in the press of boisterous lads.

Len Spencer, grinning hard, rushed along at the head of the juvenile mob.

“Boys, you’d better reconsider!” shouted the young reporter.  “Don’t write yourselves down as louts.  The man on the clubhouse steps, on account of just what he said, proved himself one of the sages of the ages.  Prescott, in telling you just what he said, has performed a public service, if only you fellows were bright enough to comprehend.”

“Get out of our way, Spencer!” ordered Spoff Henderson.  “As sure as guns we’re going to duck Dick Prescott in the public fountain.”

“If you won’t listen to reason, then,” roared Len, using his long legs to put him well in advance of the juvenile mob, “then I’ll use enchantment to spoil your foolish work.  You shall not duck Prescott!  Hi, pi, yi, animus, hocus pocus!  That enchantment will foil you!”

Having reached the fountain, Len drew aside dramatically.

“In with him!” shouted the youngsters.

Then they halted in sheer amazement.  For the first time the boys noted that no water was running in the fountain, and that the basin underneath was wholly dry.

“My enchantment has worked,” chuckled Len.

“How did you do it?” demanded one puzzled youngster.

“Never mind,” Len retorted mysteriously.  “Now, if you don’t instantly put Dick Prescott on his feet and leave him alone, I’ll work an enchantment that will raise hob with every boy who lays as much as a finger on Dick.”

So Prescott was allowed to slide down to his feet.  He was laughing, enjoying every moment of the fun.

“We could have run him down to the next fountain,” suggested one of the schoolboys.

“It would do you no good, and Prescott no harm,” Len retorted dryly.  “At three o’clock this afternoon the fire department turned off all of the public fountains in order to clean ’em.”

Now Dick’s late tormentors began to feel that they had been badly “sold” all around.  After the manner of boys, they grinned sheepishly, then more broadly and finally ended by laughing heartily.  But the crowd did not break up at once.  All waited, with a vague hope that some kind of mischief would happen.

A smaller boy went by, calling the evening newspaper.  Tom Reade bought one and stood at the edge of the crowd, reading.