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real occasion for it, but there was none in this case. That ’s why I ought to punish you, Harry; but I ’m not going to do it, because your offense was due to ignorance, You ‘ll know better next time.”

“Sure,” said Harry.

Harry had a strong sense of honor, as he understood it, which meant that he must “play fair” with his friends. How he treated others was a matter of minor importance. To play fair with the judge and Mr. Raymond he must carry out the contract he had made with them, and this view of the situation was sufficient to give him a feeling of superiority. The other boys had been sent to school, while he had come of his own volition as the result of a business arrangement that one man might make with another. In consequence, he carried his head high and spoke occasionally of his “partnership” with the two men. Thereupon the other boys turned their shafts upon his friends.

Harry had found it very difficult to accept the ridicule directed at him personally, but his own unconscious egotism, combined with the principal’s method of presenting the matter to him, had enabled him to do it for all of two months. He could see that it was not right for a boy or a man to be the judge and the policeman in a case that concerned himself. However, it was quite another matter when a friend was assailed; the man who would n’t stick up for a friend was beneath contempt. So one day he struck the most annoying of his tormentors,

“Fair fight!” cried all the others, joyously; for a continuation of fisticuffs had been impossible on the previous occasion, and they longed to see the mettle of this bey tested.

“Sure,” returned Harry, that being the one plea that always appealed to him, and he instantly squared off for combat.

“Not here!” urged the delighted youngsters. “You ’ll be caught if you fight here,”

“Anywhere,” said Harry.

“Behind the guard-house!” they shouted.

“That suits me,” exclaimed Harry, with plucky cheerfulness; and from that moment the boys had a higher opinion of him. It was quite immaterial whether he won or lost, so long as he displayed the requisite courage, but circumstances made this especially important in his case. He was so much apart from the others that he never could be accepted on terms of equality until he had demonstrated his ability to force respect.

As a matter of fact he was whipped—at least, the beys said so, although he was still fighting gamely when the interruption came. He did not know what it was to be whipped; he would fight as long as he could stand. But his opponent, in addition to being the larger, was a good boxer, and Harry knew very little of that science. His training had been the rough-and-tumble training of the streets. When the principal interfered, he struggled to get free and renew the attack; but he was held in check by a strong hand.

“I ain’t all in yet!” he cried.

“You ’re going to be all in the guard-house,” returned the principal, with grim humor; and to the guard-house he and Dick Tyner, his opponent, went, this being the form of punishment for the breaking of certain rules.

“Want to try it some more?” demanded Harry, the moment they were alone. “You ain’t licked me yet, an’ you can’t do it in a reg’lar scrap without rules.”

“You ’re all right, Harry,” returned Dick, admiringly. “The boys won't have a word to say against you after this. You ’ve got the right stuff in you, and you ’ve proved it. That ’s enough. You ’re all right on pluck, but you have n’t got the science. When we get out of this I ’ll show you some tricks that are worth knowing. I would n’t do that for everybody, either.”

“Shake,” said Harry, promptly extending his hand. It was the humiliation of defeat rather than anger that he felt, and he had more than the average boy’s respect for physical prowess. “You ‘re all right, too—if you don’t think I’m easy.”

“I don’t.”

After shaking hands and removing some of the signs of combat from faces and clothing.—for even the victor had suffered considerably,—they gave some thought to their situation. Harry was rebellious, but Dick took it quite as a matter of course. There would be extra drill for all spectators, he said, in addition to from twenty-four to forty-eight hours of con-