of anything that the former Gridley boys had encountered in High
School. Had they been able to pursue this branch of study in
the more leisurely and lenient way of the colleges, both young
men might have stood well.

As it was, after the first fortnight Greg went to the "goats,"
or the lowest section in mathematics, while Dick, not extremely
better off, hung only in the section above the goat line.

As the fall hops came on Greg went to about three out of every four.

"A fellow can bone until his brain is nothing but a mess of bone
dust," he complained. "Dick, old chum, you'd better go to hops,
too."

Dick went to only one, in October. He stagged it, whereas Greg
often dragged. But Prescott saw no girl there who looked enough
like Laura Bentley to interest him. His standing in class interested
him far more than hops at which a certain Gridley girl could not
be present.

Laura had written him that she and Belle might be at a hop early
in December.

"I'll wait and look forward to it," decided Dick. But he said
nothing, even to Greg. Holmes was showing an ability to be interested
in too many different girls, Prescott decided.

But it may be that Holmes, knowing that Griffin corresponded with
his pretty, black-eyed little sister, may have been intentionally