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Show SSw-1"' ; ' Doubledriy, Page & Company than she used to be. At least, he was honest enough to make a partial retraction re-traction when his friend and classmate, class-mate, Fred Mitchell, insisted that an amelioration of Dora's appearance could be actually proven. "Well. I'll take It back. I don't claim she's every last bit as awful lookin' as she always has been," said Ramsey, toward the conclusion of the argument. "I'll say this for her, she's awful lookin', but she may not be as awful lookin' as she was. She don't come to school with the edge of some of her underclo'es showln' below her dress any more, about every other day, and her eyewlnkers have got to stick-In' stick-In' out some, and she may not be so abbasalootly skinny, but she'll haf to wait a mighty long while before I want to look at her without gettlu' sick !" The implication that Miss Tocum cared to have Ramsey look at her, either with or without gettln' sick, was mere rhetoric, and recognized as such by the producer of it ; she had never given the slightest evidence of any desire that his gaze be bent upon her. What truth lay underneath his flourish flour-ish rested upon the fact that he could not look at her without some symptoms symp-toms of the sort he had tersely sketched to his friend ; and yet, so pungent Is the fascination of self-inflicted misery, he did look at her, during dur-ing periods of study, often for three or four minutes at a stretch. His expression ex-pression at such times indeed ..resembled ..resem-bled that of one who has dined unwisely un-wisely ; but Dora Yocum. was always too eagerly busy to notice It. He was almost never in her eye, but she was continually In his; moreover, as the banner pupil she was with hourly frequency fre-quency an exhibit before the whole class. Ramsey found her worst o all when her turn came In "Declamation," on Friday afternoons. When she ascend- He had Itfl Perhaps the tMxi truth of thai phrase, and some sense of its applicability to the occasion had Interfered with the mechanism which he had set In operation to get rid of the "recitation" for him. At all events, the machine had to run off its Job all at once, or it wouldn't, run at all. He gulped audibly. "Rude rude rude am I rude am I in speech In speech in speech. Rude am I in speech " "Yes," the Irritated teacher said, as Ramsey's failing :oice continued huskily husk-ily to insist upon this point. "I think you are !" And her nerves were a little lit-tle soothed by the shout of laughter from the school it was never difficult for teachers to be witty. "Go sit down, Ramsey, and do It after school." His ears roaring, the unfortunate went to his seat and, among all the hi' larlous faces, one stood out Dora Y'o-cum's. Y'o-cum's. Her laughter was precocious; it was that of a confirmed superior, in. sufferably adult she was laughing at nim as a grown person laughs at a child. Conspicuously and unmistakably, unmistaka-bly, there was something indulgent in her amusement. He choked. He didn't care for George Washington, oi Paul Revere, or the teacher, or the President of the United States, oi Shakespeare, or any of 'em. They could all go to the dickens with Dora Yocum. They were all a lot of smart-les smart-les anyway and he hated the whole stew of 'em ! There was one, however, whom he somehow couldn't manage to hate, even though this one officially seemed to be as Intimately associated with Dora Yocum and superiority as the others were. Ramsey couldn't hate Abraham Lincoln, even when Dora was chosen to deliver the "Gettysburg Address," on the twelfth of February. Lincoln had said "Government of the psople, by the people, for the people," and that didn't mean government by the teacher and the Teacher's Pet and Paul Revere and Shakespeare and suchlike; It meant government by everybody, and therefore Ramsey had as much to do with it as anybody else had. Beyond a doubt, Dora and the teacher thought Lincoln belonged to them and their crowd of exclusives ; they seemed to think they owned the whole United States; but Ramsey was, sure they were mistaken about Abraham Abra-ham Lincoln. -He felt that it was just like this little lit-tle Yocum snippet to assume such a thing, and it made him sicker than ever to look at her. Then, one day, he noticed that her eye-winkers vfere stickln' out farther and farther. His discovery Irritated him the more. Next thing, this ole Teacher's 'Pet would do she'd get to thlnkln' she was pretty ! If that happened, well, rjobody could stand her! The long lashes made her eyes shadowy, and it was a fact that her shoulder blades ceased to insist upon notoriety ; yo couldn't tell where they were at all, any more. A contemptible thing happened. Wesley Bender was well known to be, the most untitdy boy In the class, and had never shown any remorse for Ms reputation or made the slightest effort either to Improve or to dispute It. He was content : it failed to lower his standing with his fellows or to impress im-press them unfavorably. In fact, he was treated as one who has attained a slight distinction. It helped him to become better known, and boys liked to be seen with him. But one day, there was a rearrangement of the seating In the schoolroom : Wesley Bender was given a desk next In front of Dora Yocum's ; and within a week the whole room knew that Wesley had begun voluntarily to wash his neck the back of it, anyhow. This was at the bottom of the fight between Ramsey Milholland and Wesley Wes-ley Bender, and the diplomatic exchanges ex-changes Immediately preceding hostilities hostili-ties were charmingly frank and un-hypocrltical, un-hypocrltical, although quite as niixed-up niixed-up and off-the-Issue as If they had been prepared by professional foreign office men. Ramsey and Fred Mitchell and four other boys waylaid young Bender on the street after school, intending in-tending jocosities rather than violence, but the victim proved sensitive. "You take your ole hands off o' me I" he said fiercely, as they began to push him about among them. "Ole dirty Wes 1" they hoarsely bellowed bel-lowed and squawked, In their changing chang-ing voices. "Washes his ears I" . . . "Washes his neck !" . . . Dora Yocum told his mama to turn the hose on hlra !" Wesley broke from them and backed away, swinging his strapped books In a dangerous circle. "You keep off!" he warned them. "I got as mutb right to my pers'nal appearance anybody !" This richly fed their humor, rfnd they rioted round him, keeping outside the swinging books at the end of the strap. "Pers'nal appeararce' !" . , . "Tow! Ole dirty Wes, he's got pers'nal per-s'nal appearance!" . . . "Who went and bought It for you, Wes?" . . . "Nobody bought It for him. Dora Yocum took and give him one!" "You leave ladles' names alone I" cried the chivalrous Wesley. "Yon j ought to know better, on the public street, you pups!" "TEACHER'S PET." Synopsis. With his grandfather, small Ramsey Mllholland is watching watch-ing the "Decoration Day Parade" In the home town. The old gentleman, gentle-man, a veteran of the Civil war. endeavors to impress the youngster with the significance of the great conflict, and many years afterward the boy was to remember his words with startling vividness. In the schoolroom, a few years later, Ramsey is not distinguished for brilliancy. He hates German even more than arithmetic. CHAPTER II. Continued. 2 Sometimes, too, there were moments of relaxation In her class, when she would stop the lesson and tell the children about Germany : What a beautiful, beau-tiful, good country It was, so trim and orderly, with such pleasant customs, and all the people sensible, energetic and healthy. There was "Music" again in the German class, which was another an-other alleviation ; though it was the same old "Star Spangled Banner" over again. Ramsey was tired of the song and tired of "My Country 'Tis of Thee" ; they were bores, but it was amusing to sing them In German. In Germain they sounded "sort ' funny," so he didn't mind this bit of the day's Tvorlf. Half an hour later there arrived his supreme trial of this particular morning. morn-ing. Arithmetic then being the order of business before the house, he was sent alone to the blackboard, supposedly supposed-ly $o make lucid the proper reply to a fatal conundrum In decimals, and under the glare and foerrs of tire wihole room he breathed heavily and Itched everywhere ; 'his brain at once 'became sheer hash. He consumed as much time as possible In getting the terms of the problem stated in chaLk ; then, affecting to be critical 'of his own handiwork, erased what he had done and carefully wrote It again. After that he erased half of tt, slowly retraced re-traced figures, and stepped back as If to see whether perspective improved their appearance. Again the lifted the eraser. "Ramsey Milholland:!" "Ma'am?" "Put down that eraser !" "Yes'm. I just thought " Sharply bidden to get forward with ils task, he explained in a feeble voice that he had first to tie a shoestring and stooped to do so, but was not permitted. per-mitted. Miss RIdgely tried to stimulate stimu-late him with hints and -suggestion.; found hlra, so far as decimals went, mere protoplasm, and, wondering how Bo helpless a thing could dive, -summoned to the board little Dora Yocum, the star of the class, whereupon Bam-sey Bam-sey moved toward his seat. "Stand still, Ramsey! Xou stay, right where you are and try .to learn something from the way Dora does ft," The class giggled, and Ramsey fitood, but Named nothing. His conspicuuus-ness conspicuuus-ness vas unendurable, because all of his schoolmates naturally found more entertainment in watching him than In following the performance of the capable Dora. Instructed to watch every .figure chalked up by the mathematical wun-ue wun-ue , his eyes, grown sodden, were unable un-able to remove themselves from the ji&rt In her hair at the back of bar head, where two little hraids begau their separate careers to end in .a cau-jjJle cau-jjJle of hlue-and-red-checked bits of rib- j b'jo, one upon each of her thin abend- ler blades. His sensations elogged his Intellect; he suffered fr.om unsought ootoriety, aud liated Dora Yocum ; most oi ail he hated h.er busy little houUler blades. He liad to be "kept In" after school ; Mini when he was allowed to go home in- averted his eyes as he went by the tiouse where Dora lived. She was out in I he yard, eating a doughnut, and be knew It; but he had pased the age when It is Just as permissible to throws' throw-s' rook at a girl as at n boy; and .u.'.hig his normal Inclinations, he valk.it sturdily ou, though he Indulged himself so 'ur as tc engage In a mur-nured mur-nured conversation with one of the familiar s; lilts dwelllir.g somewhere within him. "Pfa!" said Ramsey to himself or himself to Ramsey, since It Is difficult to say which was which. "Pfa ! Thinks she's smart, don't she?" . . Well. 1 guess she does, but she in't I" ... "1 hate her, don't you?" "'Most Pottent, Grave and Rev '" ed the platform, bobbed a little preparatory pre-paratory bow and began, "Listen, my children, and you shall hear," Ramsey Ram-sey Included Paul Revere and the Old North church and the whole Revolutionary Revolu-tionary war in his antipathy, since they somehow appeared to be the property of the Teacher's Pet. For Dora held this post in "Declamation" as well as In everything else; here, as elsewhere, the hateful child's prowess surpassed that of all others ; and the teacher alwuiys entrusted her with the rendition of the "patriotic selections." Rumsey himself was In the same section of declnlmers, and performed next a ghastly .contrast. He gave a "selection from Shakespeare," assigned by the teacher; and he began this continuous con-tinuous misfortune by stumbling violently vio-lently as he ascended the platform, which stimulated a general giggle already al-ready in being at the mere calling of his name. All of the class were bright with happy anticipation, for the miserable mis-erable Ramsey seldom failed their hopes, particularly In "Declamation." He faced them, his complexion wan. his expression both baleful and horrified horri-fied ; and he began In a loud, hurried voice, from which every hint of Intelligence Intel-ligence was excluded : " Jut gimme one chance to I show that girl wKat he really is !" (TO BE CONTINUED.) . . . "You bet your life 1 hate her '" . . . "Teacher's Pet, that's what I call her!" . . . "Well, that's what I call her, too, don't IV "Well, I do; that's all she is. an) way dirty ole Teacher's Pet I" CHAPTER III. He had not forgiven her four years .ater when he entered high s;hool in hr company, for somehow Ramsey managed to shovel his way through examinations and stayed witl, the class. He was unable ta deny that I shi had heroine less awfu' lookin' I J " '.Most pottent. grave and rev'" The teacher tapped sharply on her desk, and stopped him. "You've forgotten for-gotten to bow," she said. "And don't say 'pottent.' The word Is 'potent'." Ramsey flopped his head at the rear wall of the room, and began again: "Most pottent potent grave and rev-enerd rev-enerd signers my very nobe and approved ap-proved good masters that I have tan away this sole man's dutter It is mose true true I have marry dnr the very headan frun tuv my fenJing hath this extent no more rude am I in speecn In spech rude am I in speech In speech in syeech In speech " , |