t of this guest; and, as they
watched him, the Associate Superintendent began to superintend.

He looked at the children all in their clean and smiling rows; he looked
at the flowers and the gold-fish; at the pictures and the plaster casts;
he looked at the work of the last term and he looked at Teacher. As he
looked he swayed gently on his rubber heels and decided that he was
going to enjoy the coming quarter of an hour. Teacher pleased him from
the first. She was neither old nor ill-favored, and she was most
evidently nervous. The combination appealed both to his love of power
and his peculiar sense of humor. Settling deliberately in the chair of
state, he began:

"Can the children sing, Miss Bailey?"

They could sing very prettily and they did.

"Very nice, indeed," said the voice of visiting authority. "Very nice.
Their music is exceptionally good. And are they drilled? Children, will
you march for me?"

Again they could and did. Patrick marshaled his line in time and triumph
up and down the aisles to the evident interest and approval of the
"comp'ny," and then Teacher led the class through some very energetic
Swedish movements. While arms and bodies were bending and straightening
at Teacher's command and example, the door opened and a breathless boy
rushed in. He bore an unfolded note and, as Teacher had no hand to
spare, the boy placed the paper on the desk under the softening eyes of
the Honorable Timothy, who glanced down idly and then pounced upon the
note and read its every word.

"For you, Miss Bailey," he said in the voice before which even the
school janitor had been known to quail. "Your friend was thoughtful,
though a little late." And poor palpitating Miss Bailey read:

"Watch out! 'Gum Shoe Tim' is in the building. The Principal caught him
on the back-stairs, and they're going round together. He's as cross as a
bear. Greene in dead faint in the dressing-room. Says he's going to fire
her. Watch out for him, and send the news on. His lay is reading and
discipline."

Miss Bailey grew cold with sick and unreasoning fear. As she gazed
wide-eyed at the living confirmation of the statement that "Gum Shoe
Tim" was "as cross as a bear," the gentle-hearted Principal took the
paper from her nerveless grasp.

"It's all right," he assured her. "Mr. O'Shea understands that you had
no part in this. It's all right. You are not responsible."

But Teacher had no ears for his soothing. She could only watch wit