LIKE A THUNDERBOLT
Garry Grayson stared at Bill as though he could not believe his ears.
"Wh-h-at?" he stammered.
"Don't roll your eyes like a dying fish," admonished Bill "Trust old
Doc Sherwood. He knows. And if you feel like crying, you can weep on my
shoulder."
"Bill knows what he's talking about," broke in Ted, who, with a number
of other boys, had been watching Garry's face with amusement as the
news was imparted to him. "It's straight goods. This is old Shrugg's
last day in Lenox."
"Glory, hallelujah!" cried Garry, throwing his bundle of books in the
air and catching it dexterously on its return. "That's the best news
I've heard since school opened! It seems too good to be true! How did
you find it out?"
"Just got the tip from Ralph Wynn," replied Nick. "And it came straight
to him from Mr. Allen, too! Oh, it's true all right! That's the reason
that Shrugg was so full of gall to-day. It was his last chance to work
it off."
"Where's he going?" asked Garry.
"He's got a position away off in the upper part of the State," put in
Rooster. "It seems that this thing's been brewing for some time. Mr.
Allen and the school board have heard so many complaints of Shrugg's
tyrannical methods that they decided to get rid of him, though they let
him stay until he could get himself fixed. But now we're through with
him."
"I feel sorry for the poor dubs that will be under him," put in
Rooster. "Our gain will be their loss."
"Oh well," returned Nick, "why should we have to take all the bad
medicine?"
"I wonder whom we'll get in his place," conjectured Garry. "Though it
doesn't much matter. Any change is bound to be for the better."
Garry's chums looked grinningly at each other.
"Shall we tell him!" asked Rooster.
"Better go slow," admonished Ted.
"He oughtn't to have two shocks in one day," added Nick.
"Let me see," said Bill, assuming a professional air and feeling
Garry's pulse. "Hum! Hum! A little fast, but not dangerously so. Yes, I
think it will be safe to tell him. Trust old Doc Sherwood. He knows."
Garry made a pass at him, and Bill ducked with a loss of his
professional dignity.
"Quit your kidding," demanded Garry. "Spill it. Who's coming in
Shrugg's place?"
"Mr. Phillips," replied Ted.
Garry's heart gave a bound and his face became radiant.
"Not our Mr. Phillips of the Hill Street school?" he exclaimed.
"That's the one," Nick assured him. "You'll see him at the desk when we
go into the English class to-morrow morning. Shrugg shakes the dust of
Lenox from his shoes to-night."
"What a change it will be to have a regular fellow for a teacher!"
exulted Garry.
"And as good a scholar as Shrugg ever was," put in Rooster. "I
understand he was a star in his classes at Amherst, as well as on the
football team."
"I'm glad, too, for Mr. Phillips's own sake as well as ours," remarked
Ted. "It will be promotion for him to come from a grammar school to a
high school. He'll be a professor in a big college before he's through."
"Let's hope that won't be until we get out of high," put in Garry.
"Gee, I feel as though some one had given me a million dollars!"
"We sha'n't hear any more about the brutality of football," laughed
Bill. "You've got through being a disgraceful brawler, Garry."
"You can intrude yourself now into the society of gentlemen without
feeling out of place," added Rooster, grinning.
The boys were early in their places in the English class the following
morning, and when Mr. Phillips entered there was a ripple of applause
that swelled in volume as other pupils followed the lead of the former
Hill Street boys. It was a sincere tribute, and Mr. Phillips flushed
with pleasure as he bowed and took his seat.
He made no formal speech, simply expressed his thanks at the welcome
and his hope that he and the boys would enjoy their studies together
and that his pupils would feel free to come to him with any of their
problems, whether bearing on the lessons or not. There was no stiffness
nor pedantry about him, and coming after the primness of Trompet
Shrugg, the contrast was refreshing. In that little two-minute talk he
got close to all the boys in the class, and it was evident that the
English class, instead of being dreaded as before, was to be looked
forward to with pleasure.
At the close of the hour he held an impromptu reception as the former
Hill Street boys crowded around him.
"Gee, but we're glad to see you here, Mr. Phillips," said Garry, his
face shining with pleasure, and his comrades expressed themselves with
equal warmth.
"You can be sure that I am very glad, too, to have so many of my old
pupils in the class," responded Mr. Phillips warmly, as he shook hands
with each. "I could see from the work you did this morning that all of
you have kept well up in your studies. That's fine. You look, too, as
though you were in fine physical condition. I suppose with some of you
a part of that is due to football."
"We fellows who play are at the game whenever we get a chance," replied
Garry, with a smile.
"I've kept track of you in that to some extent," said Mr. Phillips. "I
saw that game with Wimbledon, and I was proud of the way you played,
Garry, when you were called on to take the place of Dittler. And I saw
you boys when you came so near to taking a game from the regulars. You
all did good work."
"That's because we had such a good coach when we were in Hill Street,"
declared Garry.
"Oh, I don't know about that," laughed Mr. Phillips. "What little I did
wouldn't have amounted to much if I hadn't had such good material to
work with."
"But after all we're only on the scrubs," put in Rooster, with a wry
face.
"That's a great deal in itself," replied Mr. Phillips. "You're right
in line for promotion to the regulars. Of course you couldn't expect to
make the regulars the first year, no matter how well you played. That's
a tradition of high school and college that's very strong and seldom
broken. But I look for all of you to be first string boys before you
finish your course."
"Here's hoping," said Garry, and after a little further talk on general
matters the boys took their leave.
The next morning, as Garry Grayson was eating breakfast, he heard a
startled exclamation from his father, who was glancing over the morning
paper.
"What's the matter, Dad?" asked Garry, laying down his knife and fork.
"Matter enough," replied Mr. Grayson gravely. "Frank Sherwood has been
arrested!"