"How do you know that I wasn't just working a bluff?" he answered. But after the door had closed behind the lad the storekeeper remained in his place behind the counter for a long minute, perplexity written on his face. "Bluffing, eh?" he repeated, half aloud. "Well, all I've got to say 'twas a pretty good bluff to make Sandy Podder turn white in the face and hurry out of the shop as though a ghost was at his heels. Looks like Sandy Podder had some trouble with his father about money and that Garry Grayson knows about it. It's no wonder, the way he runs with that poolroom crowd. No boy of mine could keep company with that bunch and live under the same roof with me. That poolroom ought to be closed up, and I'd like to be the one to do it." Meanwhile, Garry made his way homeward as quickly as he could. He was irritated by his encounter with Sandy Podder, and half angry with himself because of the slip of the tongue that had almost revealed the shameful facts concerning that young reprobate and the missing three thousand dollars. Sandy had apparently gotten out of that scrape a good deal more easily than he deserved. For a time after the occurrence he had seemed subdued. But the improvement had lasted only a short time, and now he was as bad--worse, some thought--as ever. "He hates us fellows for the part we took in showing him up," murmured Garry to himself, "and now that we're entering the same high school where he's been studying, he'll do his best to get even with us. Well, let him try," with an unconscious clenching of the fists. "I guess we'll be a match for him. We've beaten him before, and we can probably do it again." It was not long before the great day came--great, at least, from Garry's viewpoint--the day on which he was to enter Lenox High. Mrs. Grayson had spent a few days before the opening in shopping for Garry and Ella, for the latter was to enter the high school on the same day as her twin brother. There had been a spirited race during the years of grammar school between the brother and sister. When Garry skipped from 3A to 4A, Ella had put on her working cap and skipped also. When in the higher grades Ella made a brilliant spurt and skipped again, Garry had urged himself to greater effort and in the next grade caught up to her. Now, as they were about to step on a higher rung of the ladder of learning, they were still side by side. As they faced each other over the breakfast table, Ella radiant with excitement and bubbling over with good spirits, Garry a bit sheepish and acutely conscious of the handsome new suit that had been bought for him to celebrate the occasion, it would have been hard to find in the whole of Lenox a more wholesome or promising pair of youngsters. At least Mrs. Grayson thought so, and it is safe to say that Mr. Grayson agreed with her.