ch of it
as he could form until he had found just how the land lay, and
what would be safe. His present berth, as principal of Gridley
H.S., was a much better one than he had ever occupied before.
Mr. Cantwell cherished a hope of being able to keep the position
for a good many years to come. Yet this would depend on the attitude
of the Board of Education. In order not to take any step that
would bring censure from the Board, Mr. Cantwell had decided to
attend the Board's next meeting on the following Monday evening,
and lay the matter before the members confidentially. If the
Board so advised, Mr. Cantwell was personally quite satisfied
with the idea of disciplining Dick by dropping him from the High
School rolls.

"I'll protect my dignity, at any cost," Mr. Cantwell, murmured,
eagerly to himself. "After all, what is a High School principal,
without dignity?"

Monday afternoon Dick Prescott stepped in at "The Blade" office.

"Got something for us again?" asked Mr. Pollock, looking around.

"Not quite yet," Dick replied. "I've come to make a suggestion."

"Prescott, suggestions are the food of a newspaper editor. Go
ahead."

"You don't send a reporter to report the Board of Education meetings,
do you?"

"No; those meetings are rarely newsy enough to be worth while.
I can't afford to take up the evening of a salaried reporter
in that way. But Spencer generally drops around, at the time
the Board is expected to adjourn, or else he telephones the clerk,
from this office, and learns what has been done. It's mostly
nothing, you know."

"Spencer wouldn't care if he didn't have to report the Board meetings
at all?"

"Of course not. Len would be delighted at not having anything
more to do."

"Then let me go and report the meetings for you, on space."

"My boy, a reporter would starve on that kind of space work.
Why, after you put in the whole evening there, you might come
to the office only to learn that we didn't consider any of the
Board's doings worth space to tell about them."

"Will you let me attend a few of the meetings, and take my chances
on the amount of space I can get out of it?"

"Go ahead, Prescott, if you can afford to waste your time in that
fashion," replied Mr. Pollock, almost pityingly.

"Thank you. That's what I wanted," acknowledged Dick, and went
out very well contented.

When it lacked a few minutes of eight, that evening, all the members
of the Board of Education had arr