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At supper Gerald asked Alf if he might bring a recruit to the meeting. “It’s Arthur Thompson, and he wants to join, Alf.”

“Bring him. Where’s your badge, though?” Alf pointed to his own yellow disk, which he wore conspicuously pinned to his lapel. “Didn’t you get instructions to wear it?”

“I didn’t know you meant to wear it to supper, Alf.”

“Why not? How do you suppose people are to know that we have a secret society unless we advertise it?” asked Alf, disgustedly. “Well, bring Thompson along with you. Joe Chambers is coming, too. As editor of The Scholiast, he may be able to give the society a nice write-up in the next number.”

When Gerald and Arthur reached 7 Dudley, they were confronted by a sheet of brown paper pinned to the door. It read:

Headquarters of the S. P. M.

A SECRET SOCIETY

Ask for a circular!

Alf, Tom, Dan, and Joe Chambers were already inside as Gerald gave the password and was admitted. Chambers was a tall First Classman, who wore glasses and tried his best to look cultured. Joe rather fancied himself as a molder of public opinion, and really did have a knack of writing red-hot editorials. When Gerald came in he was sprawled in an easy chair, visibly amused by the proceedings.

“We are all here,” announced Alf, gravely. “The Sergeant-at-Arms—I mean the Incendiary—will lock the door. Hold on a minute, though!” He took a sheet of foolscap from a table drawer, and pinned it on the outside of the door, under the first sign. The others followed him and read:

INITIATION NOW GOING ON.

NO ADMITTANCE.

“There,” said Alf, “I guess that’s some businesslike, what?”

“Look here,” said Joe, uneasily, “you didn’t say anything about initiation when you beguiled me to this den of iniquity.”

“My dear chap,” expostulated Alf, “you didn’t think, did you, that you could join a society of this sort without being initiated? Why, that’s absurd, positively absurd. Isn’t it, Tom?”

“Silly,” grunted Tom.

“Of course.” Alf locked the door. “The initiation will now proceed. The novitiates will remove their coats and waistcoats, please.”

Arthur obeyed smilingly, but Joe Chambers looked a trifle uneasy, and hesitated. “What for?” he asked. “What do you think you’re going to do with me?”

“What!” roared Alf, savagely. “Would you dare question the authority of the Chief Assassin?”

“I would,” replied Joe, firmly. “What’s your game?”

Alf looked helplessly at Tom and Dan. “Did you ever hear of such effrontery, such ingratitude, such—such— Honest, now, did you?”

Dan sadly acknowledged that he never had. Tom grunted.

“Here I invite him to become a member of the finest, most high-toned little band of cutthroats in the country,” said Alf, “and now he refuses to allow himself to be initiated. Ha, I have it!” He viewed Joe darkly. “It was a scheme to penetrate to our meeting-place and learn our secrets! You are a brave man, Joe Chambers, to put yourself in our power!”

“Come on, Joe, be a sport,” begged Dan. “What do you care if you get killed?”

“And think what it would mean to the school, Joe,” added Tom. “We’d be spared those editorials in The Scholiast!”

“Yes, be a good fellow, Joe. Just one tiny little initiation,” said Alf. “It won’t take five minutes; honest, it won’t. Look at Thompson there, brave and calm. My word, how brave and calm!”

“Oh, all right,” laughed Joe. “Go ahead with your tomfoolery. What do you want me to do?”

“Remove your coat and waistcoat,” returned Alf, promptly. “The Incendiary will give you a check for them. Thank you. Lay them aside, Gerald. It’s barely possible he will need them again.” Alf crossed to the window-seat and piled the cushions together in the middle. “Now, gentlemen, the first ordeal will be that known as the Ordeal by Water.” He opened the window from the bottom and put his hand out. It was still raining hard, and Alf seemed to derive much satisfaction from the fact. “Kindly place yourselves on the cushions, gentlemen. No, faces up, please, and heads outside the window. That’s it. Thank you very much.”

“But it’s raining, you idiot!” protested Joe.

“Ah, that is the point,” replied Alf, gravely.

“Well, I’m going to take my collar and tie off,” grumbled Joe. He did so, and Arthur followed his example. Then, side by side, they stretched themselves across the cushions, their legs sprawling over the floor, and their heads and shoulders over the sill.

“Beautiful,” said Alf, approvingly. “Hold it, please.” From somewhere he whisked into sight two broad-mouthed tin funnels and clapped them into the mouths of the recumbent boys. At the same instant he closed the window as far as it would go. Both strove to get their hands outside to remove the funnels, but they were so closely jammed in that they couldn’t move their arms. Dan and Tom and Gerald viewed the proceedings with broad grins.

“How long before they will drown?” asked Tom, untroubledly.

“About two minutes,” replied Alf, darting to the door. It opened and closed behind him, and they heard him speed down the corridor and then go racing upstairs. A moment later there were footsteps in the room overhead. Dan looked inquiringly at Tom.

“Whose room is above?” he asked.

“Steve Lingard’s. What’s Alf up to, do you suppose?”

“Search me, but I guess we’ll find out if we wait.” The two pair of legs on the floor were beginning to move restively. Evidently the position was growing wearisome. The three boys inside heard a window above being softly raised, and they crowded around Joe and Arthur and watched. Suddenly, there descended a great stream of water straight onto the faces of the two initiates. Away went Arthur’s funnel, but not until he had swallowed enough water to almost choke him. Joe’s funnel had tipped sideways, so that he fared rather better; but when Dan and Tom raised the window and pulled them into the room, there wasn’t much to choose between them. Both looked like drowned rats, and were gasping and choking and sputtering wildly. They were soaking wet halfway to their waists. Alf came hurrying in, and the quartette sank into chairs and laughed until their sides ached. Joe was the first one to find his voice.

“A r-r-rotten joke!” he gasped. “You fellows think you’re plaguey smart, don’t you? L-l-look at me! I’m wet to the skin!”

“Yes, but you’re a member in good standing of the S. P. M.,” returned Alf, soothingly. “All that remains is to swear to reveal everything that you have witnessed at the meeting.”

“Yah!” said Joe, disgustedly, seizing a towel and trying to dry himself off. “You make me tired!”

Arthur, however, took it quite good-naturedly.

“Gee,” he said, “I thought I was drowned there for a minute. What was it, Loring, a cloudburst?”

“Yes, from Lingard’s pitcher. It was a peach of a shot, wasn’t it? Better take your shirts off, fellows, and get dry. Joe, you are elected to the office of Press Agent Extraordinary and Chief of the Bureau of Publicity. Thompson, you are First Assistant Assassin. Any little jobs too menial for me to attend to will become your duty; trifling murders that you can attend to in the evenings after study. And now, Brothers in the Cause, we will banquet.”

Alf had provided crackers and pâté and cheese, and six bottles of ginger ale; and Joe, who had wiped his shoulders dry, and hung his upper garments over the radiator, became pacified. Alf removed the initiation notice from the door, and replaced it with one announcing that a midnight orgy was in progress. They were disturbed several times by knocks and demands for admission, but no one was allowed in. When Tom Roeder became too obstreperous, Dan mounted a chair and dropped an empty ginger-ale bottle through the transom. He had to guess at his aim, but, from the subsequent sounds, and the fact that Roeder took himself off precipitately, it is probable that the aim was not so bad.

The meeting broke up late, and none of the six had any study to their credit that night. But then, as Alf pointed out, that didn’t matter very much, since in a very short time the faculty would be totally eradicated. That, he explained, would happen just as soon as he was able to decide which member to do away with first.

“The trouble is, fellows, that as soon as I decide on one, it occurs to me that another deserves the honor more. At present Old Toby and Noah are tied for first place.”

“I wish you’d make it Noah,” sighed Arthur. “I’m having beastly luck with his old physics lately.”

“Why not begin at home?” asked Joe. “There’s Kilts right down the hall there.”

“Ssh!” Alf leaned across the remains of the feast. “Just between ourselves, I have a weakness for Kilts, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to get him to join us. I’ve always thought that Kilts would make a dandy assassin. He reminds me so often of one of those old Scotch Boarders—I mean Borderers. When the time is ripe I shall put it up to him, and I think—mind you, I only say I think—that he will jump at the chance!”

After that evening the S. P. M. met occasionally and informally, and there was one hilarious evening when another double initiation took place, Harry Durfee, the baseball captain, and Tom Roeder, being admitted to the fold. By that time the S. P. M. had become rather famous throughout school, and there were many applications for membership. But Alf counseled keeping the society select. Many guesses were made as to what S. P. M. stood for, the guesses varying from Socially Prominent Members to Stewed Prune Munchers. Alf managed to derive a good deal of entertainment from his society; but as the faculty continued to breathe and have their being, it must be confessed that the S. P. M. failed of its avowed mission. March settled down to fair and warm weather before it was half gone; and with the beginning of outdoor work for baseball and track candidates, the S. P. M. lost its interest.

The track and field squad had grown to over forty boys, and every afternoon they were hard at it under Andy Ryan’s direction. Every one was glad when gymnasium work was over, and they could get out on the field and feel the sod or cinders under their spiked shoes. Dan and Alf were busy on the diamond, Dan at second base and Alf in left field. Tom was swinging the hammer around his head or tossing the shot, getting himself into form again, and at the same time helping Andy with the coaching of three other candidates for the weight events. Thompson was working hard at the high bar, and Gerald—well, Gerald was trying his best to run his young legs off, and would have succeeded, I fancy, had not Andy Ryan kept a close watch on him. For Gerald was eager and willing to a degree; and if he had been left to his own devices, would undoubtedly have blasted his chances in the very first fortnight by overexertion.

For Gerald’s idea of training for the mile run was to go out every day and run that distance at top speed; and he was both surprised and disappointed when Andy restricted him to jogging around the track one day, racing a quarter of a mile the next, and, as like as not, laying him off entirely the third.

“But I’m perfectly able to run to-day, Andy,” he pleaded on one such occasion. Andy shook his head.

“Easy does it, my boy, easy does it,” he replied. “You’ve got two months ahead of you yet. We’ll start slow and work up. Mile runners aren’t made in a day, nor a week, nor yet a year, for that matter.”

And when Gerald complained to Alf that he feared Andy wasn’t going to take enough interest in him, Alf gave him a little lecture. “Get that idea out of your head, Gerald,” he said, severely. “Andy knows what he’s up to. When he tells you to jog, you jog. When he tells you to sprint, you sprint; and when he says rest, why, rest as hard as you know how. That’s the way to get on fastest. Distance running, as I’ve heard, is largely a matter of endurance, and I guess endurance is something you’ve got to learn slowly.”

“But I’ve run three miles time and again, Alf, and finished strong.”

“Yes, but you weren’t doing the mile around five-five, and that’s what you’ll have to do if you want to get a place in the Duals, Gerald. Has Andy given you a trial yet?”

“No, and I wish he would. He says he isn’t going to until after recess, though.”

Alf nodded wisely. “What he says goes, Gerald. Keep that in mind. Remember that Andy knows more about training than you ever will know if you live to be a hundred.”

And Gerald got the same sort of talk from Dan and Tom. Only Arthur Thompson was at all sympathetic.

“Seems to me,” said Arthur, “he might let you do a good deal more than he is, Gerald. But then I don’t pretend to know anything about running. Anyhow, I guess he means to take you on the squad.”

“I guess so, because there are only four of us out for the mile. Maury has been at it every day this week, except Saturday. I don’t think it’s fair, Arthur. Of course, I won’t be able to do anything against him if I don’t get any practice!”

“Well, you don’t expect to beat him, do you?” asked Arthur, with a smile. “He’s pretty good at it, you know.”

“The best he ever did it was five, three-and-four-fifths,” Gerald objected.

“Well, isn’t that pretty good?”

“Y-yes, but I’ll bet I could do it pretty near that.”

“Bet you couldn’t!” replied Arthur, laughingly. “Not yet awhile. Why, Maury’s nineteen, I guess; eighteen, anyhow.”

“Well, I’m sixteen,” answered Gerald, stoutly. “And, besides, age hasn’t got much to do with it, anyway.”

“Yes it has, Gerald. You’re stronger at eighteen than you are at sixteen, and strength means endurance; and I guess you’ve got to have a heap of that to make good in the mile run.”

“I read in a book,” said Gerald, “that all you have to do to become a good distance runner is to practice. And Andy won’t let me do that. I guess I’ll try for something else. Think I could learn to pole vault?”

“Maybe. But I’d stick to the mile if I were you, Gerald. You’d have to begin all over if you went in for the pole.”

“Yes, I suppose I should,” answered Gerald, dispiritedly.

Arthur slapped him on the back.

“Buck up, Mr. Pennimore! Never say die, you know.”

But Gerald’s countenance didn’t clear. “That’s all well enough for you,” he grumbled, “for Andy treats you right. And Maury makes a fuss about you, because you’re our crack pole vaulter. But they don’t care a button whether I get along or not. I guess they’re just laughing at me behind my back. Guess they think I’m sort of a fresh kid for wanting to make the team. I’ve seen fellows kind of grin as I went by on the track.”

“Oh, come, Gerald, that’s nonsense!” said Arthur, heartily. “Nobody’s laughing at you, I’ll bet. It’s plucky of you to try for the track squad, and I guess every fellow thinks that way. And don’t get discouraged about it. Even if you don’t do terribly well this year, you’ve got two more years here, and college afterward.”

“But I’m going to do well this year,” replied Gerald, determinedly. Adding, less assuredly, “If they’ll give me a fair show, I mean.”

“And they will. Why shouldn’t they? Don’t you think Andy and Maury want to win the Duals as much as you do? Not to treat you fair would be cutting off their nose to spite their face, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” answered Gerald. Then he laughed. “Andy would have a hard time cutting off his nose, wouldn’t he? He couldn’t find it, I guess!”