jar that made the windows rattle.

Bassett, the Whirlwind, lay on his back, half dazed with amazement and
feeling too weak to rise because most of the wind seemed to have been
knocked out of him. Once more, as of old, David had slain Goliath, and
the victor was receiving congratulations.

At that moment a boy larger than any who had been in the room pushed his
way through the crowd. "No fighting in the dormitory!" he cried. "What's
all this about?" And then he saw Bassett just rising weakly to a sitting
posture and observed the other boys slapping Teeny-bits on the back. He
gazed in doubt from one to the other and then said to the diminutive
conqueror: "Did you put this big lummux down?"

"You bet he did!" cried a dozen voices.

"Well, you did a mighty good job," he declared. "You're new here, but a
lot of these other fellows are not, and they know as well as I do that
we're not supposed to fight or have wrestling matches in the
dormitories. Get on your feet there, Bassett, and mind your own business
hereafter. I know well enough that you started this. You got just what
you deserved, didn't you!"

In an authoritative way that was confident without being "bossy" he
ordered the boys out of the room, and when the last of them had gone and
the sound of their joking remarks to the crestfallen Bassett was
receding, he said to Teeny-bits:

"You must be a whale of a scrapper for your size--and I'm mighty glad
you gave that fresh-mouthed Bassett a good lesson. But don't get into
any more trouble with him. You know we have a sort of self-government
here, and we can't be smashing up things in the dormitory. I room
downstairs in Number 26. Come in sometime soon."

Later in the day Teeny-bits learned that his visitor was Neil Durant,
pitcher on the baseball team, and captain of the football eleven. He was
dormitory leader, which meant that he represented Gannett Hall on the
self-government committee of the school. Turner, who gave Teeny-bits the
information, was only one of many boys who dropped in that day to see
the conqueror of Bassett, the Whirlwind. Turner--the same Terrible
Turner who had been willing enough for combat earlier in the
morning--confessed with a grin that he was pretty glad Teeny-bits hadn't
wrestled with him! "If I'd hit the floor as hard as Bassett did, I'd bet
my backbone would have been broken into forty pieces," he said. "Oh,
what a pippin of a thump!"

Teeny-bits liked Turner's frank, outspoken way