The High School Pitcher Part 6

"If that's his plan," inquired Reade, "what are you going to do, old fellow?"

"Perhaps---just possibly---I shall fight back with the same weapon,"

smiled d.i.c.k.

Mr. Cantwell had, in truth, formed his plan, or as much of it as he could form until he had found just how the land lay, and what would be safe. His present berth, as princ.i.p.al of Gridley H.S., was a much better one than he had ever occupied before.

Mr. Cantwell cherished a hope of being able to keep the position for a good many years to come. Yet this would depend on the att.i.tude of the Board of Education. In order not to take any step that would bring censure from the Board, Mr. Cantwell had decided to attend the Board's next meeting on the following Monday evening, and lay the matter before the members confidentially. If the Board so advised, Mr. Cantwell was personally quite satisfied with the idea of disciplining d.i.c.k by dropping him from the High School rolls.

"I'll protect my dignity, at any cost," Mr. Cantwell, murmured, eagerly to himself. "After all, what is a High School princ.i.p.al, without dignity?"

Monday afternoon d.i.c.k Prescott stepped in at "The Blade" office.

"Got something for us again?" asked Mr. Pollock, looking around.

"Not quite yet," d.i.c.k replied. "I've come to make a suggestion."

"Prescott, suggestions are the food of a newspaper editor. Go ahead."

"You don't send a reporter to report the Board of Education meetings, do you?"

"No; those meetings are rarely newsy enough to be worth while.

I can't afford to take up the evening of a salaried reporter in that way. But Spencer generally drops around, at the time the Board is expected to adjourn, or else he telephones the clerk, from this office, and learns what has been done. It's mostly nothing, you know."

"Spencer wouldn't care if he didn't have to report the Board meetings at all?"

"Of course not. Len would be delighted at not having anything more to do."

"Then let me go and report the meetings for you, on s.p.a.ce."

"My boy, a reporter would starve on that kind of s.p.a.ce work.

Why, after you put in the whole evening there, you might come to the office only to learn that we didn't consider any of the Board's doings worth s.p.a.ce to tell about them."

"Will you let me attend a few of the meetings, and take my chances on the amount of s.p.a.ce I can get out of it?"

"Go ahead, Prescott, if you can afford to waste your time in that fas.h.i.+on," replied Mr. Pollock, almost pityingly.

"Thank you. That's what I wanted," acknowledged d.i.c.k, and went out very well contented.

When it lacked a few minutes of eight, that evening, all the members of the Board of Education had arrived. It was the same Board as in the year before. All the members had been re-elected at the last city election, though some of them by small majorities.

Mr. Gadsby, one of the members who had won by only a slight margin over his opponent, stood with his back to a radiator, warming himself, when he saw the door open.

Mr. Gadsby nodded most genially to Mr. Cantwell, who entered.

The princ.i.p.al came straight over to this member, and they shook hands cordially. Mr. Gadsby had been one of the members of the Board who had been most anxious about having Cantwell appointed princ.i.p.al; Cantwell was, in fact, a family connection of Mrs.

Gadsby's.

"Coming to make some report, or some suggestion, I take it, eh, Cantwell?" murmured Mr. Gadsby in a low voice. "Most excellent idea, my dear fellow. Keeps you in notice and shows that your heart is in the work. Most excellent idea, really."

"I have a report to make," admitted Mr. Cantwell, in an equally low voice. "I---I find it necessary to make a statement about the doings of a rather troublesome element in the school. Suspension or expulsion may be necessary in order to give the best ideas of good discipline to many of the other students. But I shall state the facts, and ask the Board to advise me as to just what I ought to do in the premises."

"Ask the Board's advice? Most excellent idea, really," murmured Mr. Gadsby. "You can't go wrong then. But---er---what's the nature of the trouble? Who is the offen-----"

Mr. Gadsby was rubbing his hands, under his coat tails, as he felt the warmth from the steam radiator reach them.

"Why, the princ.i.p.al offender is named-----"

Here Mr. Cantwell paused, and looked rather astonished.

"Tell me, Mr. Gadsby, what is Prescott, of the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s, doing here?"

The princ.i.p.al's glance had just rested on d.i.c.k, who sat at a small side table, a little pile of copy paper on the table, a pencil in his hand.

"Oh---ah---Prescott, Richard Prescott?" inquired Mr. Gadsby.

"Some of us were a bit surprised this evening to learn that Prescott, though he will continue to attend High School, has also taken a position with 'The Morning Blade.' Among other things to which he will attend, after this, Cantwell, is the matter of school doings in this city. He is to be the regular reporter of School Board meetings. Rather a young man to wield the power of the press isn't he?" Mr. Gladsby chuckled at his own joke.

"'Power of the press'?" murmured Mr. Cantwell, uncomfortably.

"Surely you don't mean, Gadsby, that this mere boy, this High School student, is going to be taken here seriously as representing the undoubtedly great power of the press?"

"To some extent, yes," admitted Mr. Gadsby. "'The Blade,' as you may know, is a good deal of a power in local politics. Now, some of us---er---did not win our re-elections by any too large margins. A little dangerous opposition to---er---some of us---would mean a few new faces around the table at Board meetings. Mr.

Pollock is---er---a most estimable citizen, and a useful man in the community. Yet Mr. Pollock is---er---Cantwell---er---that is, a bit 'touchy.' No matter if Pollock's reporter is a schoolboy, if we treated the boy with any lack of consideration, then Pollock would most certainly take umbrage at what he would choose to consider a slight upon himself, received through his representative. So at these Board meetings, young Prescott will have to be treated with as much courtesy as though he were really a man, for Pollock's hostility would be most disastrous to us---er---to some of us, possibly, I mean. But, really, young Prescott is a most bright and enterprising young fellow, anyway---a very likable boy. _You_ like him, don't you, Cantwell?"

"Ye-e-es," admitted the princ.i.p.al, though he added grimly under his breath:

"I like him so well that I could eat him, right now, if I had a little Worcesters.h.i.+re sauce to make him more palatable."

"The Board will please come to order," summoned Chairman Stone, rapping the table with his gavel. "Mr. Reporter, have you good light over at your table."

"Excellent, thank you, Mr. Chairman," d.i.c.k replied.

"Er---aren't you going to stay, Cantwell?" demanded Gadsby, as the princ.i.p.al turned to leave the room.

"No; the fact is---I---well, I want to consider my statement a little more before I offer it to the Board. Good evening!"

Mr. Cantwell got out of the room while some of the members were still sc.r.a.ping their chairs into place.

d.i.c.k Prescott had not openly looked in the princ.i.p.al's direction.

Yet the amateur reporter had taken it all in. He was grinning inside now. He had taken upon himself the work of reporting these meetings that he might be in a position to block any unfair move on the part of the princ.i.p.al.

"I wonder what Mr. Cantwell is thinking about, _now_?" d.i.c.k asked himself, with an inward grin as he picked up his pencil.

That Board meeting was about as dull and uneventful as the average.

Yet d.i.c.k managed to make a few live paragraphs out of it that Guilford, "The Blade's" news editor, accepted.

It still lacked some minutes of ten o'clock when young Prescott left the morning newspaper office and started briskly homeward.

"I didn't catch that Board-reporting idea a day too soon," the boy told himself, laughing. "Mr. Cantwell was certainly on hand for mischief to-night. But how quickly he made his get-away when he discovered that his culprit was present as a member of the press! I guess Mr. Gadsby must have pa.s.sed him a strong hint.

But I must be careful not to have any malice in the matter.

Some evening when Mr. Cantwell does come before the Board with some report I must take pains to give him and his report a nice little notice and ask 'The Blade' folks to be sure to print it.

Then---gracious!"

Utterly startled, d.i.c.k heard and saw an ugly brickbat whizz by his head. It came out of the dark alley that the soph.o.m.ore was pa.s.sing at that moment. And now came another, aimed straight for his head!