"I defy anybody to prove that there's anything funny about being kissed by practically half the grown-up population of Windomville with the other half lookin' on and cussin' under their breath." "Don't pay any attention to him, Mr. Thane," said the poetess of Windomville. "Alix Crown said last night she was coming to the meeting this week, and I'd so like to surprise her. Now please say you will do it." "I really wouldn't know what to talk about," pleaded the young man. "You see, as a rule, we fellows who were over there don't feel half as well qualified to talk about the war as those who stayed at home and read about it in the papers." "Nonsense! All you will have to do is just to tell some of your own personal experiences. Nobody's going to think you are bragging about them. We'll understand." "Next Friday night, you say? Well, I'll try, Mrs. Pollock, if you'll promise to chloroform Charlie Webster," said he, and Charlie promptly declared he would do the chloroforming himself. CHAPTER VII COURTNEY APPEARS IN PUBLIC The meetings of the Literary Society were held once a month in the Windomville schoolhouse, a two story brick building situated some distance back from the main street at the upper edge of the town. There were four classrooms and three teachers, including the principal, Miss Angie Miller, who taught the upper grade. Graduates from her "room" were given diplomas admitting them to the first year of High School in the city hard-by in case they desired to take advantage of the privilege. As a rule, however, the parents of such children were satisfied to call it an honour rather than a privilege, with the result that but few of them ever saw the inside of the High School. They were looked upon as being quite sufficiently educated for all that Windomville could possibly expect or exact of them. When the old schoolhouse was destroyed by fire in the winter of 1916, Alix Crown contributed fifteen thousand dollars toward the construction of this new and more or less modern structure, with the provision that the town board should appropriate the balance needed to complete the building. On completion the schoolhouse was found to have cost exactly $14,989.75, and so, at the next township election, the board was unanimously returned to office by an appreciative constituency, and Miss Crown graciously notified by the assessor that she had been credited with ten dollars and twenty-five cents against her next year's road tax.