ters
pressed close to the iron grating as the train got under way. On the
back platform the Tucker twins raised their voices in a school yell that
would have horrified the dignified heads of the Academy had they been
there to hear it.

CHAPTER IX

ADJUSTER TOMMY

"I'm Salsette born!" trilled Tommy Tucker soulfully.

"And Salsette bred!" chimed in his brother

"And when I die--" caroled Tommy.

"I'll be Salsette dead!" they finished together.

Then, highly satisfied with this intelligible ditty, they burst into the
car where the others were waiting for them.

The boys had appropriated the seats at the forward end of the car, and
unfortunately their selection included a seat in which an elderly, or so
she seemed to them, woman sat. She fidgeted incessantly, folding and
unfolding her long traveling coat, opening and closing a fitted lunch
basket, and arranging and re-arranging several small unwieldy parcels and
heavy books that slid persistently to the floor with the jarring of the
train. When the conductor came through for tickets, she discovered that
she had mislaid hers and it was necessary to flutter the pages of every
book before the missing bit of pasteboard finally dropped from between
the leaves of the last one opened.

Bob, with instinctive courtesy, had offered to help her search, but she
had rebuffed him sharply.

"I don't want any boy pawing over my belongings," she informed him
tartly.

Bob flushed a little, it was impossible not to help it, but he said
nothing. Meeting Betty's indignant eyes, he smiled good-humoredly.

"Sweet pickles!" ejaculated Tommy Tucker indignantly. "Here, you Timothy,
hand me that suitcase at your feet--it belongs to the little dark girl."

Libbie, "the little dark girl," smiled dreamily as Timothy passed her
suitcase to Tommy. She and Timothy Derby, ignoring the jeers of their
friends, were deep in two white and gold volumes of poetry. Timothy,
Libbie had discovered, had a leaning toward the romantic in fiction,
though he preferred his served in rhyme.

The wicked Tommy had a motive in asking for Libbie's suitcase. It was
much smaller and lighter than any of the others, and he swung it deftly
into the rack over the vinegary lady's unsuspecting head. With a
deftness, born it must be confessed of previous practice, he balanced
the case on the rim so that the first lurch of the train catapulted the
thing down squarely on the woman's hat, snapping a shiny, hard b