e place now to a sudden
blazing up of the old wrath. He did not raise his voice; but every
word he spoke was alive with anger.

"You cowardly puppies! You talk about the flag! The only flag you're
fit to live under is the black flag, with skull and cross-bones on
it."

Then he turned on his heel and marched up the aisle to where Miss Grey
was seated at her desk. He took Colonel Butler's letter from his
pocket and handed it to her.

"My grandfather," he said, "wishes me to give you this letter."

She looked up at him with a grieved and troubled face.

"Oh, Pen!" she exclaimed, despairingly, "what have you done, and why
did you do it?"

She was fond of the boy. He was her brightest and most gentlemanly
pupil. On only one or two other occasions, during the years of her
authority, had she found it necessary to reprimand him for giving way
to sudden fits of passion leading to infraction of her rules. So that
it was with deep and real sorrow that she deplored his recent conduct
and his present position.

"I don't know," he answered her. "I guess my temper got the best of
me, that's all."

"But, Pen, I don't know what to do. I'm simply at my wit's end."

"I'm sorry to have given you so much trouble, Miss Grey," he replied.
"But when it comes to punishing me, I think the letter will help you
out."

The bell had stopped ringing. The boys and girls had crowded in and
were already seated, awaiting the opening of school. Pen turned away
from his teacher and started down the aisle toward his seat, facing
his fellow-pupils as he went.

And then something happened; something unusual and terrible; something
so terrible that Pen's face went pale, he paused a moment and looked
ahead of him as though in doubt whether his ears had deceived him, and
then he dropped weakly into his seat. They had hissed him. From a far
corner of the room came the first sibilant sound, followed at once by
a chorus of hisses that struck straight to the boy's heart, and echoed
through his mind for years.

Miss Grey sprang to her feet. For the first time in all the years she
had taught them her pupils saw her fired with anger. She brought her
gavel down on the table with a bang.

"This is disgraceful!" she exclaimed. "We are in a school-room, not in
a goose-pond, nor in a den of snakes. I want every one who has hissed
to remain here when school closes at noon."

But it was not until after the opening exercises had been concluded,
and the youn