contemptuously, and to the delight of the class. Mr. Reardon, who had
spent several weeks in Paris ten years before, took his revenge on the
verbs, whenever he had his book open. But another time Amory showed off
in history class, with quite disastrous results, for the boys there were
his own age, and they shrilled innuendoes at each other all the following
week:

"Aw--I b'lieve, doncherknow, the Umuricun revolution was _lawgely_ an
affair of the middul _clawses_," or

"Washington came of very good blood--aw, quite good--I b'lieve."

Amory ingeniously tried to retrieve himself by blundering on purpose.
Two years before he had commenced a history of the United States which,
though it only got as far as the Colonial Wars, had been pronounced by
his mother completely enchanting.

His chief disadvantage lay in athletics, but as soon as he discovered
that it was the touchstone of power and popularity at school, he began
to make furious, persistent efforts to excel in the winter sports, and
with his ankles aching and bending in spite of his efforts, he skated
valiantly around the Lorelie rink every afternoon, wondering how soon he
would be able to carry a hockey-stick without getting it inexplicably
tangled in his skates.

The invitation to Miss Myra St. Claire's bobbing party spent the morning
in his coat pocket, where it had an intense physical affair with a dusty
piece of peanut brittle. During the afternoon he brought it to light
with a sigh, and after some consideration and a preliminary draft in the
back of Collar and Daniel's "First-Year Latin," composed an answer: