Young Lenwell's head was now too large for his body. He was the hero of the hour. Rule or ruin rested on this young Napoleon of the Sage Brush, divinely ordained to free the downtrodden youths of America from the iron heel and galling chains with which the faculty of the average American high school enthralls and degrades--and so forth, world without end. This at least was Clare Lenwell's attitude from one o'clock P.M. to five o'clock P.M. of an unusually hot June day. At the stroke of five Jerry rose, with calm face, but a dangerously square chin, saying, in an untroubled tone: "You may as well go. Good afternoon." Young Lenwell walked out, the cock of the hour--until the next morning. Then all of the Seniors were recorded as having received full credits for graduation from all of the faculty--except one pupil, who lacked one teacher's signature. Clare Lenwell was held back by Miss Swaim, teacher of the mathematics department. The earthquake followed. In the session of the school board on the afternoon of Commencement Day Junius Brutus Ponk, who presided over the meeting, sat "as firm as Mount Olympus, or Montpelier, Vermont," he said, afterward; "the uncle Lenwell suffered eruption, Vesuviously; and the third man of us just cowed down, and shriveled up, and tried to slip out in the hole where the electric-light wire comes through the wall. But I fetched him back with a button-hook, knowin' he'd get lost in that wide passageway and his remains never be recovered to his family." It was not, however, just a family matter now among the Lenwells. In the presence of the superintendent and Mrs. Bahrr, Miss Swaim was called to trial by her peers--the board of education. In this executive session, whose proceedings were not ever to be breathed--for York Macpherson would have the last man of them put in jail, he was that influential--_Other Things Were Made Known_--Things that, after the final settlement, became in time common property, and so forgotten. Herein Stellar Bahrr's three years of pent-up anger at last found vent. She had been preparing for this event. She had adroitly set the trap for the first difficulty, that had its start in the Lenwell family, while she was doing their spring sewing. Incessantly and insidiously she laid her mines and strung her wires and stored her munitions, determined to settle once for all with the pretty, stuck-up girl who had held a whip over her for three whole years. Charges were to be brought against Miss Swaim of a _serious_ character, and she was to be tried and condemned in _secret session_ and allowed to _leave_ the town _quietly_. _Nothing_ would be said _aloud_ until she was _gone_. In despair, Ponk sought York Macpherson two hours before the trial began.