t that vibrate from
the school are felt in every home of the section. We are in the thick
of preparations for a deadly contest with the insolent, benighted,
boastful, but hitherto triumphant Front, in the matter of shinny. You
know my antipathy to violent sports, and you will find some difficulty
in picturing me an enthusiastic trainer and general director of the
Twentieth team, flying about, wildly gesticulating with a club, and
shrieking orders, imprecations, cautions, encouragements, in the most
frantic manner, at as furious a company of little devils as ever went
joyously to battle.

"Then, as if this were not excitement enough, I am made the unwitting
spectator of a truly Homeric contest, bloodier by far than many of those
fought on the plains of windy Troy, between the rival leaders of the
school, to wit, Hughie of the angelic face and OTHER-angelic temper, and
an older and much heavier boy, who rejoices in the cognomen of 'Foxy,'
as being accurately descriptive at once of the brilliance of his foliage
and of his financial tactics.

"It appears that for many months this rivalry has existed, but I
am convinced that there is more in the struggle than appears on the
surface. There is some dark and deadly mystery behind it all that only
adds, of course, to the thrilling interest it holds for me.

"Long before I arrived on the arena, which was an open space in the
woods in front of what Foxy calls his store, wild shrieks and yells fell
upon my ears, as if the aboriginal denizens of the forest had returned.
Quietly approaching, I soon guessed the nature of the excitement, and
being unwilling to interfere until I had thoroughly grasped the ethical
and other import of the situation, I shinned up a tree, and from this
point of vantage took in the spectacle. It appeared from Foxy's violent
accusations that Hughie had been guilty of wrecking the store, which,
by the way, the latter utterly despises and contemns. The following
interesting and striking conversation took place:

"'What are you doing in my store, anyway?' says he of the brilliant
foliage. 'You're just a thief, that's what you are, and a sneaking
thief.'

"Promptly the lie comes back. 'I wasn't touching your rotten stuff!' and
again the lie is exchanged.

"Immediately there is demand from the spectators that the matter be
argued to a demonstration, and thereupon one of the larger boys, wishing
to precipitate matters and to furnish a casus belli, puts a chi