When he had delivered to each of his comrades a check for ninety dollars, he rose and stretched himself and said, with accents of relief:-- “Now I’m not ‘IT’ any longer.” “Oh, yes, you are,” said Irv. “We fellows are going to stick together now, you know. There’s the study club, you remember. That will need an ‘IT,’ and you’ll be the ‘IT,’ won’t he, boys?” “You bet!” said all in a breath. * * * * * When Irv and Ed reported the voyage and the study club plan to Mrs. Dupont, she entered enthusiastically into the scheme. “Don’t go to school at all this year,” she said. “Come to me instead. When bright boys have made up their minds to study as hard as they can without any forcing, all they need is a tutor to help them when they need help. I’ll be the tutor. The old schoolroom in my house, where I taught you boys and your fathers the multiplication table long before graded schools were thought of in this town, is unoccupied. Everything in it is just as it was when you boys were with me. I’ll have the maids dust it up, and it shall be the home of the ‘Study Club.’” When the boys told the wise old lady how Phil had been made “IT” on the voyage, and how splendidly he had risen to his responsibilities, she smiled, but showed no surprise. “I’m glad you boys had the good sense to choose Phil for your leader,” she said. “If you had asked me, I should have told you to do just that. I am older than you by nearly half a century. I have taught several generations of boys, and I think I know boys better than I know anything else in the world. Now let me tell you about Phil. He was born to be ‘IT,’ he will always be ‘IT,’ though he will never try to be. He has a gift--if I didn’t detest the word for the bad uses it has been put to, I’d say he has a ‘mission’ to be ‘IT’ in every endeavor that he may be associated with. Whenever you’re in doubt, be very sure that Phil is your best ‘IT.’” Here this story comes to an END TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES Where the original work uses text in italics, this e-text uses _text_. Small capitals in the original work are represented here in all capitals. Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to directly below the paragraph to which they belong. Illustrations that were located mid-paragraph in the original work were moved below the including paragraph. This text has been preserved as in the original, including archaic and inconsistent spelling, punctuation and grammar, except as noted below. Obvious printer’s errors have been silently corrected. Page 12: ‘tussel’ changed to ‘tussle’. Page 90: ‘Ouashita’ changed to ‘Ouachita’. Pages 100, 101 and 102: ‘Pittsburg’ is likely referring to ‘Pittsburgh’. Page 140: ‘fusilade’ changed to ‘fusillade’. Page 124: ‘spliting’ changed to ‘splitting’. Page 337: ‘Alleghanies’ changed to ‘Alleghenies’ End of Project Gutenberg's The Last of the Flatboats, by George Cary Eggleston