the pupil having mistakenly put the E on the wrong side of the line. (2) This line is very obscure, as it is difficult to tell whether the tail on the upper left side of the first letter is really the tail that converts the o into the σ (s), or the accent that indicates "rough breathing." If intended for the former, it might be the root of the word for "Syria." (3) Although three of these letters are clear, the mean ing is obscure (4) This line may be translated: EN "Of the gods." (5) In this line again we recognize the root of "courageous": A P. Apparently this boy was better in "figures" than in grammar, and would not have received 100 per cent. in the latter exercise. old. If such were demanded, a slave performed the task. But the child must mind his p's and q's in regard to legibility-only there was no q in the Greek alphabet, and our letter p represented the r sound to him! The tool with which our small boy traced his letters was the so-called style or stylus. It was AN IVORY STYLUS, NOW IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. made of wood, bone, or ivory, often of beautiful or fantastic shape and decoration; one end was pointed for writing or ploughing1 (as Roman writers later expressed it) in the wax. The other end was flat and broad, for erasing impressions already made and smoothing over the surface to make ready for further writing. When skilful with the use of the stylus, the boy might be promoted to practise with a reed pen upon papyrus, the "paper" of the Greeks and Romans. Horace, the Roman poet, gives some good advice, as true to-day as it was then, when he says: "Often turn the style [correct with care], if you expect to write anything worthy of being read." Would our little heedless school-boy have used his stylus more carefully had he dreamed that his exercise would be examined by curious eyes, almost 2000 years later? This rare human document brings so near to us a little fellow of a school era now so long vanished that we are glad he had no inkling of the immortality his childish labors were to achieve, lest he should have tried to make his alpha, beta, gamma's unboyishly perfect. As it is, we are left free to wonder why it was he worked with such apparent carelessness. Was he in haste to join his play fellows in a game of ball, or marbles, or knucklebones? Or was he a beginner, just learning to use an instrument that was new to him and difficult to manage without the teacher's guiding hand? Whatever the reason for his haste, his numberwork was correct, as can be proved by any school-boy of to-day who has learned the old Greek numerals. O little school-boy of that distant day, Full many a line, oft heedless and in haste, Time's pupil, Man, has written and erased, With History's stylus, since yours dropped in play. 1 Bias (sixth century B.C.), one of the Seven Sages, speaks of "turning in writing like oxen in ploughing," a refer ence to the custom, at one period, of writing from left to right and then back from right to left. The word is particularly appropriate, however, because the stylus did actually make a tiny furrow in the wax. AFTER SCHOOL 2 P.M. "LET me see," said lazy Lynn. "Oceans of time to do them in— Compound numbers are simple enough, once you get the hang of the stuff. I think I'll drop around to the gym, and try the tank. I'd like a swim." 4 P.M. "Twenty-fifth? You 're sure of the date? My library book is two days late. 5 P.M. His mother calls him. "That you, Lynn? Your cousin 's here, my boy; come in. 6 P.M.-IO P.M. Those examples! Poor little sinner! And yet a boy must have his dinner. Some things we learn outside of school. Among them is this splendid rule: Tudor Jenks. CHAPTER I GOLIATH LEADS THE WAY C YNTHIA sat on her veranda steps, chin in hand, gazing dolefully at the gray September sky. All day, up to half an hour before, the sky had been cloudlessly blue, the day warm and radiant. Then, all of a sudden, the sun had slunk shamefacedly behind a high rising bank of cloud, and its retiring had been accompanied by a raw, chilly wind. Cynthia scowled. Then she shivered. Then she pulled the collar of her white sweater up to her ears and buttoned it over. Then she muttered something about "wishing Joy would hurry, for it 's going to rain!" Then she dug her hands into her sweater pockets and stared across the lawn at a blue hydrangea bush with a single remaining bunch of blossoms hanging heavy on its stem. Suddenly there was a flash of red on a veranda farther down the street, and a long, musical whistle. Cynthia jumped up and waved madly. The flash of red, speeding toward her, developed into a bright red sweater, cap, and skirt. "Don't scold! Now you must n't be cross, Cynthia. Anne was just putting a big batch of sugar-cookies in the oven, and I simply had to wait till they were done! I've brought a lot over for you. Here!" The owner of the red sweater crammed a handful of hot cookies into Cynthia's pocket. "You did keep me waiting an age, Joy," Cynthia began, struggling with a mouthful of cooky; "but I forgive you. I'd almost begun to beangry!" Joy (her right name was Joyce) ignored the latter remark. "We can't go! Momsie positively forbade it. Why on earth could n't it have kept sunny a little longer? It'll rain any minute now, I suppose." "I know," Cynthia sympathized. "Mother for bade me too, long before you came out. And we counted on it so! Won't be much more chance to go canoeing this season." They sat down listlessly on the veranda steps, and solaced themselves with the last remnants of the cookies. Life appeared a trifle drab, as it usually does when cherished plans are demolished and the sun goes in! Very shortly there were no more cookies. "What on earth has happened to your hydrangea bush? It was full of blossoms yesterday," Joyce suddenly exclaimed. "Bates's pup!" replied Cynthia, laconically. There was no need of further explanation. Joyce giggled at its shorn appearance, and then relapsed into another long silence. There were times when these two companions could talk frantically for hours on a stretch. There were other seasons when they would sit silent yet utterly understanding one another for equally prolonged periods. They had been bosom friends from babyhood, as their parents had been before them. Shoulder to shoulder they had gone through kindergarten and day-school together, and were now abreast in their first high-school year. Even their birthdays fell in the same month. And the only period of the year which saw them parted was the few weeks during vacation when their respective parents (who had different tastes in summer resorts) dragged them unwillingly away to mountain and sea-shore. Literally, nothing else ever separated them save the walls of their own dwellings-and the Boarded-up House. It is now high time to introduce the Boarded-up House, which has been staring us out of countenance ever since this story began! For the matter of that, it had stared the two girls out of countenance ever since they came to live in the little town of Rockridge, one on each side of it. And long before they came there, long before ever they were born, or Rockridge had begun its mushroom growth as a pretty, modern, country town, the Boarded-up House had stared the passers-by out of countenance with almost irritating persistence. It was set well back from the street, in a big inclosure guarded by a very rickety picket-fence, and a gate that was never shut but hung loosely on one hinge. Unkempt bushes and tall, rank grass flourished in this inclosure, and near the porch grew two pine-trees like sentinels at the entrance. At the back was a small orchard of ancient cherry-trees, and near the rear door a well-curb, with the great sweep half rotted away. The house itself was a big, rambling affair of the Colonial type, with three tall pillars supporting the veranda roof and reaching above the sec ond story. On each side of the main part was a generous wing. It stood rather high on a sloping lawn, and we have said that it "stared" at passers-by-with truth, because very near the roof were two little windows shaped like half-circles. They somehow bore a close resemblance to a pair of eyes that stared and stared and stared with calm, unwinking blankness. As to the other windows and doors, they were all tightly boarded up. The boards in the big front door had a small door fashioned in them, and this door fastened with a very rusty lock. No one ever came in or out. No one ever tended the grounds. The place had been without an occupant for years. The Boarded-up House had always been boarded up, as long as its neighbors could recollect. It was not advertised for sale. When the little town of Rockridge began to build up, people speculated about it for a while with considerable interest. But as they could never obtain any definite information about it, they finally gave it up, and accepted the queer old place as a matter of course. To Cynthia Sprague and Joyce Kenway, it had, when they first came to live on either side of it, some five years before, afforded for a while an endless source of attraction. They had played house on the broad veranda, climbed the trees in the orchard, organized elaborate games of hideand-seek among the thick, high bushes that grew so close to the walls, and in idle moments had told each other long stories about its former (imaginary) inmates. But as they grew older and more absorbed in outside afirs, their interest in it ceased, till at length it came to be only a source of irritation to them, since it separated their homes by a wide space that they considered rather a nuisance to have to traverse. So they sat, on this threatening afternoon, cheated of their anticipated canoe-trip on the little stream: that threaded its way through their town to the wide Sound,-sat munching sugarcookies, glowering at the weather, and thinking of nothing very special. Suddenly there was a flash of gray across the lawn, closely pursued by a streak of yellow. Both girls sprang to their feet, Joyce exclaiming indignantly: "Look at Bates's pup chasing Goliath!" The latter individual was the Kenways' huge Maltese cat, well deserving of his name in appearance, but not in nature, for he was known to be the biggest coward in cat-dom. The girls stood on tiptoe to watch the chase. Over the lawn and through an opening in the picket-fence of the Boarded-up House sped Goliath, his enemy yapping at his heels, and into the tangled thicket of bushes about the nearer wing. Into the bushes also plunged Bates's pup, and there ensued the sound of sundry, baffled yelps. Then, after a moment, Bates's pup emerged, one ear comically cocked, and ambled away in search of other entertainment. Nothing else happened, and the girls resumed their seat on the veranda steps. Presently Joyce remarked, idly: guid interest, only seeking to pass the time, but had suddenly ended up with tremendous enthusiThat was like Joyce. asm. "I don't see what you want to do that for," argued Cynthia. "I don't care what became of him as long as he got away from Bates's pup, and I'm very comfortable right here!" Cynthia "A FLIGHT OF STAIRS COULD BE DIMLY DISCERNED." "Does it strike you as queer, Cynthia, what could have become of Goliath?" "Not at all," replied Cynthia, who had no special gift of imagination. "What could have happened to him? I suppose he climbed into the bushes." "He could n't have done that without being in reach of the pup," retorted Joyce. "And he could n't have come out either side, or we 'd have seen him. Now where can he be? I vote we go and look him up!" She had begun with only a lan (SEE PAGE 207.) was large and fair and plump, and inclined to be a little indolent. "But don't you see," insisted Joyce, "that he must have hidden in some strange place,-and one he must have known about, too, for he went straight to it! I'm just curious to find out his 'bunk.'' Joyce was slim and dark and elfin, full of. queer pranks, sudden enthusiastic plans, and very vivid of imagination, a curious contrast to the placid, slowmoving Cynthia. Joyce also, as a rule, had her way in matters, and she had it now. "Very well!" sighed Cynthia, in slow assent. "Come on!" They wandered down the steps, across the lawn, through |