d wear the G.C. by right of conquest."

"Perhaps they will, and perhaps they won't," muttered Hi Martin
angrily to himself and Tom Percival.

Chapter VI

SETTLING WITH A TEASER

Saturday morning, about eight o'clock, the entire team of the
Central Grammar met at Dave Darrin's house. In the front yard
they waited for their captain.

"Queer Dick should be a bit late," muttered Torn Reade. "He's
our model of punctuality."

"You'll see him come around the corner 'most any minute," Greg
predicted.

Nor was Holmes wrong in this. When Prescott arrived he came on
a jog trot.

"We wondered what kept you, our right-to-the-minute captain,"
announced Dave.

"Well, you see," replied Dick quizzically, "I've been thinking."

"Thinking?" repeated Tom. "Oh, I understand. You've been thinking
about what the man on the clubhouse steps said."

"Well, hardly anything as big as that," teased Dick. "I'm afraid
that you fellows are growing impatient on what is, after all,
not a very important matter."

"So, then, the speech of the man on the clubhouse steps wasn't
very important?" inquired Tom, seeking to pin their leader down.

"Why, that would depend on how you happened to regard what the
man on the clubhouse steps said," Dick laughed.

"Is that what you're going to tell us?" almost bowled Hazelton.

"I don't know that I am going to tell you much of anything," Prescott
continued.

"What did the man on the clubhouse steps say?" asked Dan, advancing
with uplifted bat.

"You'll never drag the secret from me by threats or violence,"
retorted Dick, with a stubborn shake of the head.

"We're getting away from the point," Tom went on. "You said you
had been thinking."

"Well?"

"You've made the claim of having been thinking, but you haven't
offered the slightest proof."

"What I was thinking, fellows, was that we are obliged to meet
the South Grammar nine on the diamond to-day."

"We're not afraid of them," scoffed Dave.

"No," Dick went on, "but I've an idea that we're up against an
ordeal, after a fashion. You all know what a guyer Ted Teall
is---how he nearly broke up our match with the Norths last Wednesday
afternoon."

"Ted can't do any guying this morning," declared Greg readily.
"If he does, the umpire will rule him out of the game, and that
would snap all of Ted's nerve. No; Ted won't guy us to-day."

"But I'll tell you just what will happen to us," Dick offered.
"The spectators who come from the