ishing expenses. What was to be done? The bill must be
paid. It would never do to let the _March Hare_ run behindhand. To begin
to run into debt was an unsafe and demoralizing policy.

Paul's father had urged this advice upon him from the first. The _March
Hare_ must pay its bills as it went along; then its editors would know
where they stood. And so each month the boys had plotted out their
expenses and kept rigidly within the amount of cash they had in reserve.
They had never failed once to have sufficient money to meet their bills.
In fact, their parents had enthusiastically applauded their foresight
and business ability.

And now, suddenly and unaccountably, here they were confronted by an
empty treasury. What was to be done?

Of course the bill was not large. Fifty dollars was not a tremendous
sum. But when you had not the fifty, and no way of getting it, the
amount seemed enormous.

Then there was the balking enigma of it. How had it happened?

"If we only knew what we had done with that hundred, it would not be so
bad," groaned Melville. "It makes me furious not to be able to solve the
puzzle."

"Me, too!" Paul replied gravely.

And worse than all was the humiliation of finding they were not such
clever business men as they had thought themselves to be. That was the
crowning blow!

"A hundred dollars--think of it!" said Paul. "If it had been
twenty-five! But a cool hundred, Mel!"

He broke off speechlessly.

"We can't be that amount short," protested Melville for the twentieth
time. "We simply can't be. I have not paid one bill that the managing
board has not first O.K.-ed. You know how carefully we have estimated
our expenses each month. We have kept a nest-egg in the bank, too, all
the time, in case we did get stuck. I can't understand it. We haven't
branched out into any wild schemes. Of course, after the party we did
make those presents to the school; but we looked over the ground and
made sure that we could afford to do so."

"We certainly thought we could," returned Paul glumly. "Probably,
though, we were too generous. Wouldn't people laugh if they knew the
mess we are in now!"

"Well, they are not going to know it from me," growled Melville. "If I
were to tell my father we were in debt he would say it was about what he
expected. I wouldn't tell him for a farm down East. And how the freshmen
would hoot!"

"I don't think my father would kid us," Paul said slowly, "but I know he
would be awf