silent because of the queer sense of expectancy that weighed on them; others, for very awe of the deep research. into the methods of deliberative councils shown by their president.

Hal decided he would try other arguments first.

"You boys mustn't think that because Percy Sinclair doesn't play football or rough-house with us fellows that he's a sissy. And even if he has got something the matter with his back, he is going to get all over it, and he ain't like some of these fellows you read about that are so

good they're downright softies. And even if the teacher does kind of baby him, it isn't because he likes it-he told me so. And he can't help his mother. I suppose if any of us was women and mothers and all that, and hadn't got but one kid, and he had something the matter with his back, we'd be just like that."

He paused a moment and surveyed his audience. But the boys sat there with blank faces. This was one of the flights on which they could not follow Hal. Magnanimity that could actually argue from the standpoint of any possible uni

verse in which one could be a woman and a mother was beyond them. They were not burdened with imagination. Hal quickly took a new tone and went on with his campaign.

"And I guess you needn't worry about his not being able to stand initiation. I don't know how to say it, but I guess there's another way of being brave than liking to fight and not caring about whether you are going to have the wind knocked out of you when you get into a game of football;-something that's different." He scanned the faces for some sign of comprehension. But they were guiltless of it. Hal lowered his head and swallowed hard. Then he threw his head back and looked defiantly into their eyes. He would have to do it!

"I s'pose I've got to tell you just what happened when me and Jim Eckert and Percy Sinclair went coasting down Barrowes Hill that time last month. Well, Sibyl had been thinking about Percy and feeling sorry for him. She had got it into her head that he was lonesome or wasn't happy or something-you all know that Sibyl's that way lately-got a bug about what she calls 'doing good."" Hal was blundering through this shameful first part of what he had to say like the intrepid being who swallows a dose of oil without once stopping to be chilled with the loathsome taste of it. Sisters like that, that butted into things, were a shade more disgraceful than mothers.

So

Of

Well, Sibyl bothered me until she made me promise to ask him to go coasting. And when I said he hadn't a sled, she said she'd lend him her flexible flier because she didn't use it much now. And when I said his mother wouldn't let him, she said I'd better go and see. I went, and his mother did let him. course, she told me all kinds of things about taking care that he didn't get hurt, and explained about his back and how awful sick he had been for months, and all that. But when me and Jim and Percy got started, Percy told us we needn't mind about being so careful. So we didn't, and had a fine time.

After we had coasted about an hour, we were coming down lickety-split, when all at once we turned that curve by the Parson's into a regular mix-up-two motors going different ways, and an elec

tric car, and some people, too. So of course I steered right away into the side of the road, and so did Jim, and so did Percy. It wasn't a very good place to steer into, because, although it looked like a pile of dirt with the snow over it, it was really a pile of stones, and awful rough and jagged stones, too.

"We were all in a sort of pile together, and when we got over being kind of stunned and picked ourselves up and brushed off some of the snow, Jim and me found we were pretty well barked up. Percy stood there watching us, looking white and queer, and I thought how scared he was, and felt scornful. Of course I was right glad he wasn't hurt, because his mother wouldn't think we had taken him out and got him hurt. And for a minute I was sort of glad that it was Jim and me that was all cut up and bloody, because we had sand and could stand it. But I didn't feel that way long, for every single cut and bruise began to ache like sin.

"We turned around then and started for home. Our sleds were all broken up. It was queer that Percy's sled could be so smashed up when he wasn't hurt at all. You know what a long way it is from Barrowes Hill. Well, it seemed to me that it took us hours to walk it. And there was a way we could have ridden part of the way, too, but none of us had brought car fare. And my leg and the cuts on my face got all swelled up and hurt so I couldn't stand it. And although I couldn't see anything the matter with it, Jim said his arm must be broken. And so after a while we just couldn't stand it. And-”

Hal stopped suddenly and his face. turned scarlet. He bit his lip and his eyes went to Jim Eckert's downcast face. Then he threw his head back and faced his audience defiantly.

"Well, we both of us bawled right out, loud as we could bellow. It seemed as if we couldn't help it. It hurt so bad."

There was a painful stillness in the room. Not a boy, not even Bob Streeter, raised his eyes to look upon the chieftain in his shame. Their loyal silence was almost harder to bear than if they had broken out with hoots and catcalls. Hal caught his breath while for one frenzied moment he thought, "I'm going to do

it again." But he weathered that storm, and when he spoke his voice was cool and level.

"We were almost home, just where our road turns off the Pike, you know, when we heard a little sound like a queer sort of gasp. And the first thing we knew Percy had fallen right down on the snow in a mussed-up heap. And when we were putting snow on his face to make him come to, and wondering what was the matter with him, and saying that we'd never take him out with us again because he hadn't any sand, we saw that his leg was all puffed out above his shoe - top. And when we tried to get his shoe off we couldn't. His foot was sprained, that was what it was. And he had walked a whole mile on it without making a sound -until it just got too much for him, and he fainted right off."

Hal drew out a wad of handkerchief and mopped at his forehead. Dead silence was in the room and he was fronted by rows of serious boys' faces. There was another moment when he was afraid the tears were coming into his eyes, for he saw that the lips of some of them were working. And Jack Dobbins brushed his eye with his coat - sleeve when he thought no one was looking. But the eyes of some of them were wide and shining. Then Hal got hold of himself again and finished airily.

"Of course, Jim and me forgot all about our little cuts and bruises, and when he came to we made a chair and made him let us carry him. And he wouldn't go home, but had us take him to the doctor's to have his foot fixed up before his mother saw him. And we stood by him while the doctor pulled it around to see if any bones were broken, and then bandaged it. And Percy didn't say a word, only set his teeth until we could hear them gritting. And the doctor just said right out, I never saw such pluck in my life.""

Dramatically Hal went back to his place behind the Three-cornered Table, and the still red and embarrassed Jim Eckert returned to his own seat, only pausing to say: "It's just as Hal told it. We blatted right out, and he never rave a sign he was hurt; and I guess Hal's right about there being another kind of bravery."

He had hardly got the words out before a dozen boys were on their feet. Oh, the splendid eagerness in their faces!

"I move we have the vote now!" they cried, tempestuously. And, of course, Percy Sinclair was elected without a dissenting voice.

Up-stairs, the evening had been progressing rather laboriously. Father and mother had done their best to make the pale, silent little fellow feel at home, and Sibyl's attentions were nothing short of embarrassing. He was a slight boy, with the small features that one is apt to think effeminate. Mother was very tender with him-but then, mother would have been sure to be fond of him, anyway, just because she was sorry for him. But father liked the frankness with which the lad met their eyes, and realized that there was courage in the cheerfulness of his fixed, pale smile. So father warmed to him, and brought a certain consideration that was almost a recognition of their common manhood to bear upon the situation, to make the little fellow forget for a moment the suspense under which he labored. And Percy felt it, and it was most grateful to the isolated boy-heart. He responded instantly to all their efforts. Books were brought out, school discussed exhaustively, games and card tricks even had been introduced.

But the suspense of the moment was too much for any small boy's endurance. It was of such terrible import-this one chance he had of being like the other boys! No one, not even Hal's father, could understand what his exile had meant to him. To understand it one would have to be like a boy, helpless and bewildered under this blind decree that barred him out from all he really cared for, and to have been like him also in being dumb, hopeless of expression, when rebellion against the injustice of it rose to his lips, and he could only look around and dully wonder. No one but just himself could know what it had been to not understand, and still to meet, day after day, week after week, some new sign that he was set apart, different, unworthy to feel the call of their companionship, the Just of their games rise in him-and then to be treated with embarrassed, halfscornful gentleness, and see them again and again and again go to their sports

and leave him alone. They never nearly knocked the breath out of him with some rough and jovial slap of sheer exuberance. Why, even in names, they were Hal or Bud or Gums, or any rough, friendly nickname; while with him they minced out his full name always. Why was it? Why was it! Just because he had once fallen and hurt his back, why did they put him aside so, when he felt like them?

And now Hal and Jim Eckert had been kind, but what could he expect but that the others would vote him down. It was too much to hope for-to be one of the Knights of the great Three-cornered Table. To be a boy like other boys, without any special consideration due to his back! To be considered worthy of initiation! To share its secrets with the greatest! To be able to laugh knowingly when mention was made of the Thing initiates saw! Hope rose in him and fell so often that finally he could not speak at all, but sat, hardly responding to the efforts of these kind people to distract him, straining ears to hear some sign from below that would seal his fate.

At last each one of the others felt the strain of suspense and fell silent, too. Suddenly a great blast of noise came to them, an uproarious cheer, and then the stamping of many feet.

Father wheeled and took the little fellow's shaking hand in his. "I think you're in," he said, a surprising glow of gladness in his face. "Even boys could never get up all that noise over your defeat." And mother pulled him to her, and straightened his tie, and brushed his hair back gently. She wanted dreadfully to kiss him, but she was too wise for that. Sibyl had bounced out into the hall to reconnoiter. "They're coming up!" she

rushed back to tell them. And, sure enough, with much pomp the committee of Bob Streeter, Jack Dobbins, and Jim Eckert were tramping up the stairs.

Like the rest of the uninitiated, we must remain in ignorance of the actual ceremonial that awaited. Father and mother, listening, commented that the noise was less than usual. Even if the candidate had shown the white feather when he saw the Thing, wild horses would not have dragged from the boys an acknowledgment of it. But when the doors were open, Percy's radiant face showed no sign of strain.

And soon refreshments were in full progress. Such piles of sandwiches as mother had provided; substantial ones; no thin-shaved bread for this function with crusts daintily cut off! And foaming pitchers of cocoa. And then the icecream! and the cakes-whole cakes with frosting in glorious masses on them, and little cakes, especially macaroons! through it all the hero moved in a sheer trance of delight. Bob Streeter hissed confidences at him through the gaps in his teeth; Jim Eckert hovered awkwardly near him. Big Jack Dobbins, entirely forgetting the proscribed back, smote him lustily in fellowship. Some genius made out of his euphonious cognomen of Sinclair the informal name of "Sink," which he bore afterward with proud delight. And whenever he met a Knight of the Three-cornered Table that boy met him brusquely, casually. There was no allowance made for backs, no allusion to his being delicate. They talked to him with rough brevity, offhand abbreviations, sometimes with a surprising lack of refinement. In short, they communicated with him intimately, as man to man.