This epidemic of "worthlessness and sentimentality" was spreading outside the district, as evidenced by an excerpt found in the dog's possession, from the upper rear elevation of the Sunday trousers of Boliver Fromme, living in District No. 4. Progress in the studies of the boys confined to amatory poetry and pugilism, both unrelated to their life work. _Iowa, My Iowa_, Major Byers' stirring lyric, had been supplanted by _Maryland, My Maryland_, in school singing. Chester Boggs, the director, refused to receive complaints, and was condemned as equally affected with the disease, and probably a "Mooner" himself. There was a certificate of Doctor Dilworthy of Teal Lake as to the existence of many cases of "extreme mental exaltation accompanied by explosive and fulminant cerebral disturbances traceable to mediate or immediate association with one Roberta Lee Frayn, an individual seemingly possessed of an abnormal power in the way of causing obsessions, fixed ideas, aberrant cranio-spinal functionings, and cranial tempests, in those of her associates resembling her in the matter of age, and differing from her in social habits, hereditary constitution, and sex." I sank back in my chair horrified, with a sinking in the region of the epigastric plexus. "We kind o' thought, Oc," said Mr. Middlekauff, "that thet would hold yeh f'r a while." I saw the muddled political relations with which this imbroglio teemed, and clung to delay as my sole hope. "I am inexpressibly shocked," said I, "and as soon as we can meet with the defendant and the director--" "What!" shrieked Mr. Middlekauff. "_Her_ present! Arter what them papers says? And everybody follerin' her, if she jest smiles, like a caff arter salt! Why, dad ding me, if I'd trust _myself_ f'r more'n a smile or two. She'll bamboozle the hull thing if she's there. I b'lieve _you've_ got it, you conceited young sprout! No, sir; decide this thing now!" "I regret the necessity," said I, "of asking time to get the opinion of the county attorney, and to--to--" "Not by a dum sight!" roared Mr. Middlekauff. "We'll see what the court has to say on this. An' when you're up f'r election ag'in, come round, an' we'll consider it f'r a while--an' then you won't know you're runnin'!" I was torn by conflicting emotions when they went away. I knew that Middlekauff was a man of influence. I was not averse to seeing Chester rebuked for his fatuous behavior, and for tempting me to a deviation from strict duty. I felt that in taking my stand with the "Mooners" I might be siding with the heaviest body of voters after all. By these whiffling winds of the mind was I baffled, finding no rest in my works on didactics and pedagogics, wondering what Middlekauff would do--until all doubts were settled by the filing of the case of The School Board of Teal Lake versus Frayn; and in a few days it came on for trial before Judge Worthington.