pper side of this
square, and over toward the opposite end from Mr. Garrison's, was
another school, called the National, and having a large number of
scholars, of a somewhat commoner class than those which attended Mr.
Garrison's. It need hardly be said that the relations between the two
schools were, to use a diplomatic phrase, "chronically strained." They
were always at loggerheads. A Garrison boy could hardly encounter a
National boy without giving or getting a cuff, a matter determined by
his size, and riots, on a more or less extensive scale, were continually
taking place when groups of boys representing the two schools would
happen to meet.

Bert was neither quarrelsome nor pugnacious by nature. He disliked very
much being on bad terms with anyone, and could not understand why he
should regard another boy as his natural enemy simply because he
happened to go to a different school. More than once he had quite an
argument with Frank Bowser about it. Frank was always full of fight. He
hated every National boy as vigorously as though each one had
individually done him some cruel injury. As sure as a collision took
place, and Frank was present, he was in the thick of it at once, dealing
blows right and left with all his might.

In obedience to the dictation of his own nature, strengthened by his
father's advice, Bert kept out of these squabbles so far as he possibly
could, and as a natural consequence fell under suspicion of being a
coward. Even Frank began to wonder if he were not afraid, and if it were
not this which kept him back from active participation in the rows. He
said something about it to Bert one day, and it hurt Bert very much.

"I'm not afraid, Shorty; you know well enough I'm not," said he,
indignantly. "But I'm not going to fight with fellows who never did me
any harm. It's wrong, that's what it is, and I'm not going to do it. I
don't care what you say."

"But you ought to chip in sometimes, Bert, or the boys will think that
you're a coward," urged Frank.

"I can't help it if they do, Shorty," was Bert's unshaken reply. "I
don't feel like it myself, and, what's more, father doesn't want me to."

The very next day there was a row of unusual dimensions, brought about
by one of the Garrison boys at the noon recess having started a fight
with one of the National boys, which almost in a twinkling of an eye
involved all the boys belonging to both schools then in the Parade. It
was a lively scene, that