"While I will not venture to gainsay Burke, and he is not here to be cross-examined, I will say that the indictment of the community, in this instance, would mean the expulsion of all the young men in the High School. To that form of sentence I do not lean. A light form of punishment would be to prohibit absolutely the final baseball game of the school season. A sever form would be to withhold the diplomas of the young men of the graduating senior class. I think it likely that both forms of punishment will be administered, but I shall not announce my decision to-day. It will come later. The young men are dismissed." Clang! Dismay would have been a mild name for what the fellows felt when they found themselves outside the building. Of the principal, in a rage they were little afraid. But when the principal controlled his temper he was a man in authority and of dangerous power. After his own meal, and some scowling reflection, Mr. Cantwell set out to find his friend and backer in the Board of Education, Mr. Gadsby. That custodian of local education heard Mr. Cantwell through, after which he replied: "Er---um----ah---my dear Cantwell, you can't very well prohibit the game, or talk of withholding diplomas from the young men of the graduating class. Either course would make you tremendously unpopular. The people of Gridley would say that you were lacking in---era sense of humor." "Sense of humor?" raged the principal, getting up and pacing the floor. "Is it humorous to have a lot of young rascals running all over one's authority?" "Certainly not," responded Mr. Gadsby. "You should---er---preserve discipline." "How am I to preserve discipline, if I can't inflict punishments?" insisted Mr. Cantwell. "But you should---er---that is---my dear Cantwell, you should make the punishments merely fit the crimes." "In such an outrageous case as to-day's," fumed the principal, "what course would have been taken by the Dr. Thornton whom you are so fond of holding up to me as a man who knew how to handle boys?" "Dr. Thornton," responded Mr. Gadsby, "would have been ingenious in his punishment. How long were the boys out, over recess time?" "Twenty-five minutes." "Then," returned Mr. Gadsby, "I can quite see Dr. Thorton informing the young men that they would be expected to remain at least five times as long after school as they had been improperly away from it. That is---er---ah---he would have sent for his own dinner, and would have eaten it at his desk, with scores of hungry young men looking on while their own dinners went cold. At three o'clock---perhaps---Dr. Thornton would have dismissed the offenders. It would be many a day before the boys would try anything of that sort again on good old Thornton. But you, my dear Cantwell, I am afraid you have failed to make the boys respect you at all times. The power of enforcing respect is the basis of all discipline." "Then what shall I do with the young men this time?"