A few minutes later, when Frank was quietly seated at his desk, a
paper was thrown from behind, lighting upon his Virgil, which lay
open before him. There appeared to be writing upon it, and with
some curiosity he opened and read the following:

"What's the price of turnips?"

It was quite unnecessary to inquire into the authorship. He felt
confident it was written by John Haynes. The latter, of course,
intended it as an insult, but Frank did not feel much disturbed.
As long as his conduct was approved by such persons as his
teacher and Mrs. Chester, he felt he could safely disregard the
taunts and criticisms of others. He therefore quietly let the
paper drop to the floor, and kept on with his lesson.

John Haynes perceived that he had failed in his benevolent
purpose of disturbing Frank's tranquillity, and this, I am sorry
to say, only increased the dislike he felt for him. Nothing is so
unreasonable as anger, nothing so hard to appease. John even felt
disposed to regard as an insult the disposition which Frank had
made of his insulting query.

"The young clodhopper's on his dignity," he muttered to himself.
"Well, wait a few months, and see if he won't sing a different
tune."

Just then John's class was called up, and his dislike to Frank
was not diminished by the superiority of his recitation. The
latter, undisturbed by John's feelings, did not give a thought to