The High School Pitcher; or, Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond — Key Ideas to Explore

Ripley had even gone so far as to bribe Tip Scammon, worthless, profligate son of the honest old janitor of the High School, to commit a series of robberies from the locker rooms in the school basement while Dick carried the key as monitor there. The "plunder" had been found in Dick's own room at home, and the young man had been suspended from the High School for a while. Thanks, however, to Laura Bentley and Belle Meade, two girls then freshmen and now sophs, Tip had been run down. Then the police made Tip confess, and he was sent away to the penitentiary for a short term. Tip, however, refused to the last to name his accomplice. Dick knew that Ripley was the accomplice, but kept his silence, preferring to fight all his own battles by himself.

So Fred Ripley was now a junior, in good standing as far as scholarship and school record went.

So far, during this new year, Ripley had managed to smother his hatred for Dick & Co., especially for Dick himself.

Lessons and recitations on this early December morning went off as usual. In time the hands of the clock moved around to one o'clock in the afternoon, at which time the High School closed for the day.

The partners of Dick & Co. went down the steps of the building and all soon found their way through the surging crowds of escaped students. This sextette turned down one of the streets and trudged along together. At first several of the other High School boys walked along near them. Finally, however, the crowd thinned away until only Dick & Co. were together.

"Dan," said Dick, smilingly, "something struck you hard this morning, when Mr. Cantwell asked us all to bring the music-money on Monday."

"He didn't say exactly 'money,'" retorted Dan Dalzell, quickly. "What Prin. did say was that each one of us was to bring fifteen _pennies_."

"Yes, I remember," laughed Dick.

"Now, we couldn't have held that mob when school let out," pursued Dan. "And now it's too late. But say, if the Prin. had only sprung that on us _before_ recess-----"

"Well, suppose he had?" interrupted Greg Holmes, a trifle impatiently.

"Why, then," retorted Dan, mournfully, "we could have passed word around, at recess, to have everybody bring just what the Prin. called for---_pennies_!"

"Hm!" grinned Dave Darrin, who was never slow to see the point of anything. "Then you had a vision of the unpopular Prin. being swamped under a deluge of pennies---plain, individual little copper cents?"

"That's it!" agreed Dan. "But now, we won't see more than a few before we go to school again Monday. Oh---wow! What a chance that takes away from us. Just imagine the Prin. industriously counting away at thousands of pennies, and a long line of boy and girl students in line, each one waiting to pass him another handful of _pennies_! Say, can you see the Prin.---just turning white and muttering to himself? But there's no chance to get the word around, now!"

"We don't need to get the word around," smiled Dick. "If we passed the word around, it might get to the Prin.'s ears before Monday, and he'd hatch up some way to head us off."

"If you can see how to work the trick at this late hour, you can see further than I can," muttered Dan, rather enviously.

"Oh, Dick has the scheme hatching, or he wouldn't talk about it," declared Dave Darrin, confidently.

"Why, if all you want is to send the whole student body on Monday morning, each with fifteen copper cents to hand the Prin., that can be fixed up easily enough," Dick pronounced, judicially.

"How are we going to do it?" asked Dalzell, dubiously.

"Well, let us see how many pennies would be needed? There are close to two hundred and fifty students, but a few might refuse to go into the trick. Let us say two hundred and forty _times_ fifteen. That's thirty-six hundred, isn't it? That means we want to get thirty-six dollars' worth of pennies. Well, we'll get them!"

"_We_ will?" demanded Dan, with a snort. "Dick, unless you've got more cash on hand than the rest of us then I don't believe a dragnet search of this crowd would turn up two dollars. Thirty-six? That's going some and halfway back!"

"There are three principal ways of buying goods of any kind," Dick continued. "One way is with cash-----"

"That's the street we live on!" broke in Harry Hazelton, with a laugh.

"The second way," Dick went on, "is to pay with a check. But you must have cash at the bank behind the check, or you get into trouble. Now the third way is to buy goods on credit."