ed him to do. I wasn't much
afraid of that myself. Phil has sense enough to see rather straight
usually. He did about that. And then the kickers put up a howl that he
had a swelled head, felt above the rest of Dunbury because he had a
college education and his father was getting to be one of the most
prosperous men in town. They complained he wouldn't go in for things the
rest of the town was interested in, kept to himself when he was out of
the store. There were some grounds for the kick I will admit. But it
wasn't a month before he got his bearings, had his head out of the clouds
and was in the thick of everything. They swear by him now almost as much
as they do by his father which is saying a good deal for Dunbury has
revolved about Stuart Lambert for years. It is beginning to revolve about
Stuart Lambert and Son now. But I am boring you with all this. Phil
happens to be rather a favorite of mine."

"You know him well?" questioned Mr. Cressy.

"I ought to. I am Robert Caldwell, principal of the High School here.
I've known Phil since he was in knickerbockers and had him under my
direct eye for four years. He kept my eye sufficiently busy at that," he
added with a smile. "There wasn't much mischief that youngster and a
neighbor of his, young Ted Holiday, didn't get into. Maybe that is why he
is such a success with the black sheep," he added with a nod in the
direction in which the khaki-clad lads had gone.

"H-mm," observed Mr. Cressy. "I am rather glad to hear all this. You see
it happens that I came to Dunbury to offer Philip Lambert a position. My
name's Cressy--Harrison Cressy," he explained.

His companion lifted his eye-brows a little dubiously.

"I see. I didn't know I was discussing a young man you knew well enough
to offer a position to. May I ask if he accepted it?" "He did not,"
admitted Harrison Cressy grimly.

"Turned it down, eh?" The school man looked interested.

"Turned it down, man? He made the proposition look flatter than a last
year's pan-cake and it was a mighty good proposition. At least I thought
it was," the magnate added with a faint grin remembering all that went
with that proposition.

Robert Caldwell smiled. He rather liked the idea of one of his boys
making a proposition of millionaire Cressy's look like a last year's
pan-cake. It was what he would have expected of Phil Lambert.

"I am sorry for you, Mr. Cressy," he said. "But I am glad for Dunbury.
Philip is the kind we need ri