ime he had spent in constructing and committing those
speeches of mingled defense and accusation had been wasted. He had
once been deeply concerned in a plan by which Rodney Grant had been
practically ostracized by the academy boys, and now, to his deepening
rage, while Grant floated high on the wave of popularity, he found
himself ignored.

Phil was naturally a sociable fellow, and a very little of such
treatment was sufficient to make him suffer keenly. Nevertheless he
sought to hide the fact beneath a haughty and disdainful air, which was
a course his disposition and temperament hardly qualified him to do.

His sister, who had not attended the game at Clearport, was the first
of his family to learn that he had fibbed about that game, and this she
did not discover until the following Monday morning, when her chum,
Lela Barker, told her everything.

"Oh, Phil," Sadie had said when she found a chance to speak with him
privately, "what made you tell father such a whopper about the game?
Why, it wasn't stopped by rain at all, and they say you ran away right
in the middle of it, and that Roger wanted you after that when they got
to hitting Rodney, and that you couldn't be found anywhere, and that
all the fellows are sore on you because you skipped out, and that----"

"Oh, cut it!" interrupted Phil. "What do I cuc-care what they say!
Let them talk their heads off."

"But, Phil," persisted the girl, "what made you do it? You don't want
to get everybody down on you, do you?"

"They can get down on me or not, just as they pup-please!" he flung
back. "I know when I get a rotten deal, and Roger Eliot, or Rod Grant,
or anybody else can't wipe his feet on me more than once--that's all!"

On Monday, when school was over for the day and the fellows hurried
over to the gym to dress for practice, Phil walked stiffly out of the
yard and turned his steps toward home. It is true that he longed and
almost hoped to hear some one of those fellows calling after him, but
not a soul seemed to observe which way he went, and resentful anger
blazed yet more fiercely in his soul.

Thus it was upon Tuesday night, when he observed that Roy Hooker was
one of the fellows who hastened toward the gym, which was enough to
convince him that Roy had practically been taken onto the team to do a
portion of the pitching.

When his sister again tried to talk with him about baseball that night
he cut her off in such a snappy, savage manner that