ather.

"Because Dally says I ought to," replied Keith.

"Well, he ought to know," said the father.

But when Keith appeared in the schoolyard during one of the pauses next
day, he was met from every side by the cry:

"There's the explorer! There's the explorer!"

The younger boys jeered openly at him. The older ones pretended to ask
him serious questions about his plans. For days he was the laughing
stock of the whole school, and even on his way to and from school he was
pursued by jibes and taunts. Through it all Keith stuck quietly to his
guns, without a sign of retraction or evasion. And in the end his
seriousness conquered. But from that day he was known to the entire
school as "the explorer," and he heard that term more often than his
own name.

XI

It was the afternoon of the last day before commencement. The atmosphere
in the class was solemn and more than a little wistful.

"It is our last hour together," said Dally when all were back in their
seats after the pause. "History is on the schedule, but--schedules are
not made for moments like these. Let us just have a friendly talk."

He did practically all the talking, and he talked to them more as an
older boy, a chum with somewhat wider experience, than as a teacher and
class principal. It made them feel their own importance rather heavily,
but still more it made them conscious of an irreparable loss. They knew
that school would not be the same in the fall, when Dally no longer was
with them. In accordance with established custom, he would go back to
the first grade and start piloting a new generation up to the point
where they had just arrived.

The class would break up, too. Some would have to stay behind. One or
two had gone as far as they could and would make a premature transfer
from school to life. Others were bound for other schools or other
cities. The rest would split in two and join with the corresponding
parts of the parallel section to form two entirely new classes. It gave
them a foretaste of what it would mean to graduate into the _gymnasium_,
and from there into the university. And it filled their hearts with
wistful pride.

The last hour was drawing to a close and everybody was talking at once,
when Dally unexpectedly asked them to give him their full attention once
more for few minutes.

"An act of justice remains to be performed," he said. "There is a boy
among you who has not received all that he had justly deserved. It was