As Arden opened the street door for the doctor to pass out, the clang and clatter of the little Wentworth girl’s ramshackle wagon (it was her brother’s, to be exact) could be heard offending the summer stillness of that peaceful, suburban street. She renounced her fugitive ball long enough to pause in her eternal pursuit and shout an inquiry about her stricken hero. “Ain’t he got to go to school no more?” she called. It made very little difference, for school would be closing in a day or two anyway and the little Wentworth girl’s mad career of solitary glory would be at an end. Her brother, released from the thraldom of the classroom, would reclaim his abused vehicle. And the hero who was to make such bitter sacrifices on account of his gallantry would be off for his dubious holiday at Temple Camp. CHAPTER IV THE UNSEEN TRIUMPH A new boy in a town makes an impression, good or bad, very quickly. If he is obtrusive he forces his way into boy circles at once, and is accepted more or less on his own terms provided he makes good. The rough and ready way is perhaps the best way for a boy to get into the midst of things in a new town or a new neighborhood. Modesty and diffidence, so highly esteemed in some quarters, are apt to prove a handicap to a boy. For these good qualities counterfeit so many other qualities which are not good at all. No doubt the shortest path of glory for a new boy is to lick the leader of the group in the strange neighborhood. Next to this heroic shortcut, boastful reminiscences of the town from which he came, and original forms of mischief imported from it, do very well—at the start. But Wilfred Cowell was not the sort of boy to seek admittance into Bridgeboro’s coterie by any such means. He was diffident and sensitive. He began, as a shy boy will, to make acquaintance among the younger children, and for the first week or so was to be seen pulling the little Wentworth girl about in her wagon, or visiting “Bennett’s Fresh Confectionery” with Roland Ellman who lived next door. He walked home from school with the diminutive Willie Bradley and one day accompanied the little fellow to his back yard to inspect Willie’s turtle. Following the path of least resistance and utterly unable to “butt in,” he made acquaintance where acquaintance was easiest to make. Thus, all unknown to him, the boys came to think of him as a “sissy.” Of course, they were not going to go after him and he did not know how to “get in” with them; at least he did not know any shortcut method. If he had stridden down to the ball field and said, “Give us a chance here, will you?” they would have given him a chance and then all would have been easy sailing. But he just did not know how to do that. So he pulled the little Wentworth girl in her brother’s wagon, and he was doing that before returning to school on this memorable day of his collapse.