. Prescott, you are fully informed as to the hoax that was
perpetrated on me yesterday morning?"

"You mean the incident of the pennies, I think, sir?" returned
the boy, inquiringly.

"You know very well that I do, young man," retorted Mr. Cantwell,
rapping his desk with one hand.

"Yes, sir; I am fully informed about it."

"And you know who was at the bottom of it, too, Mr. Prescott?"

The principal bent upon the boy a look that was meant to make
him quail, but Dick didn't quail.

"Yes, sir," he admitted, promptly. "I know at least several that
had a hand in the affair."

"And you were one of them?"

"Yes, sir," admitted the young soph, frankly. "I think I had
as much to do with what you term the hoax, sir, as anyone else
had."

"Who were the others?" fired the principal, quickly and sharply.

"I---I beg your pardon, sir. I cannot answer that."

"You can't? Why not, Mr. Prescott?" demanded the principal.

Again the principal launched his most compelling look.

"Because, sir," answered Dick, quietly, and in a tone in which
no sign of disrespect could be detected, "it would strike me as
being dishonorable to drag others into this affair."

"You would consider it dishonorable?" cried Mr. Cantwell, his
face again turning deathly white with inward rage. "_You_, who
admit having had a big hand in what was really an outrage?"

But Dick met and returned the other's gaze composedly.

"The Board of Education, Mr. Cantwell, has several times decided
that one pupil in the public schools cannot be compelled by a
teacher to bear tales that implicate another student. I have
admitted my own share in the joke that has so much displeased
you, but I cannot name any others."

"You _must_!" insisted the principal, rising swiftly from his
chair.

"I regret to have to say, sir," responded Prescott, quietly, "that
I shall not do it. If you make it necessary, I shall have to
take refuge behind the rulings of the Board of Education on that
point."

Mr. Cantwell glared at Dick, but the latter still met the gaze
unflinchingly.

Then the principal began to feel his wrath rising to such a point
that he found himself threatened with an angry outburst. As his
temper had often betrayed him before in life, Mr. Cantwell, pointing
angrily to Dick's place, said:

"Back to your seat, Mr. Prescott, until I have given this matter
a little more thought!"

Immediately afterward the principal quitted the room. Dick, after