e impatiently.

"Why, then," retorted Dan, mournfully, "we could have passed word
around, at recess, to have everybody bring just what the Prin.
called for---_pennies_!"

"Hm!" grinned Dave Darrin, who was never slow to see the point
of anything. "Then you had a vision of the unpopular Prin. being
swamped under a deluge of pennies---plain, individual little copper
cents?"

"That's it!" agreed Dan. "But now, we won't see more than a few
before we go to school again Monday. Oh---wow! What a chance
that takes away from us. Just imagine the Prin. industriously
counting away at thousands of pennies, and a long line of boy
and girl students in line, each one waiting to pass him another
handful of _pennies_! Say, can you see the Prin.---just turning
white and muttering to himself? But there's no chance to get
the word around, now!"

"We don't need to get the word around," smiled Dick. "If we passed
the word around, it might get to the Prin.'s ears before Monday,
and he'd hatch up some way to head us off."

"If you can see how to work the trick at this late hour, you can
see further than I can," muttered Dan, rather enviously.

"Oh, Dick has the scheme hatching, or he wouldn't talk about it,"
declared Dave Darrin, confidently.

"Why, if all you want is to send the whole student body on Monday
morning, each with fifteen copper cents to hand the Prin., that
can be fixed up easily enough," Dick pronounced, judicially.

"How are we going to do it?" asked Dalzell, dubiously.

"Well, let us see how many pennies would be needed? There are
close to two hundred and fifty students, but a few might refuse
to go into the trick. Let us say two hundred and forty _times_
fifteen. That's thirty-six hundred, isn't it? That means we
want to get thirty-six dollars' worth of pennies. Well, we'll
get them!"

"_We_ will?" demanded Dan, with a snort. "Dick, unless you've
got more cash on hand than the rest of us then I don't believe
a dragnet search of this crowd would turn up two dollars. Thirty-six?
That's going some and halfway back!"

"There are three principal ways of buying goods of any kind,"
Dick continued. "One way is with cash-----"

"That's the street we live on!" broke in Harry Hazelton, with
a laugh.

"The second way," Dick went on, "is to pay with a check. But
you must have cash at the bank behind the check, or you get into
trouble. Now the third way is to buy goods on credit."

"That's just as ba