ard when he thought the odds on his
own side. What none of the fellows knew, though, was that the
lawyer's son, ever since that scene in the school yard, had been
at his boxing lessons again with renewed energy.

"Play him for delay, at first, Dick," whispered Dan. "If Ripley
can rush you, and get you excited, he'll have a better chance
to win out. If you hold him off, hinder him and delay him, before
long he'll lose some of his nerve. A fellow like Ripley will
begin to go all to pieces, once he gets it into his head that
he has a long and hard job before him."

"I'll do my best," Dick promised. "Hang it, if he hadn't knocked
me down so treacherously, I wouldn't care about fighting. I don't
care so much what he _says_. Fred Ripley's mouth is the weakest
part of him."

The sophomore was waiting, a sulky frown on his face. A few feet
away Ben Badger, a grim look on his usually good-humored face,
leaned against a tree, his arms folded.

Even had he wanted to get away from this, Ripley couldn't have
done it. For a sophomore to find any excuse for getting out of
a fight with a freshman would bring down upon the soph all the
wrath and disgust of the disgraced third class.

"Come on, mucker! Take off your sweater and get ready to take
your real medicine!" snarled Fred, harshly.

But Dick Prescott, young as he was, was much too wise to allow
himself to be betrayed into anger. Instead, he halted a few feet
away, looking with a significant smile at his enemy.

"As I understand it," replied Prescott, "the festivities that
are soon to commence are to decide which is the mucker---which
will go down to the ground to eat his fill of dirt."

Badger, Thompson and Butler took upon themselves the direction
of the coming "affair."

"See here, Ted, you look after Ripley's interests," proposed Badger.

"It's a mean job. I'd sooner have the other side of the bet,"
grumbled Ted Butler, in an undertone.

"I'll look after young Prescott," continued Ben Badger. "Thomp
will do all the honors as referee."

Ripley was already peeling off his sweater.

"Get down to your fighting rig, Prescott," urged Badger, leading
his principal to one side. "How are you, boy?" he whispered,
anxiously. "Feeling right up to the fighting pitch?"

"I hate fighting," Dick answered, simply, speaking so that only
his second could hear him.

"Of course it's necessary sometimes, but I can never quite help
feeling that, at best, it's low-d