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DAVE PORTER AND HIS RIVALS

games," ventured Vera. "I did so enjoy some of those other games."

"We are not playing on the eleven this season," answered Dave. It gave him a little pang to make the admission.

"Oh, is that so!" Both of the girls gave the boys a studied look. "Well, we must be going." And then they hurried down the street, around a corner, and out of sight.

"Fellows, we ought to lay for those chaps!" cried Roger, as soon as the chums were alone.

"Just what I was going to suggest," broke in Phil.

"What good will it do?" asked Dave. "We can't make anything out of Merwell and Jasniff by talking, and we don't want to start a fight."

"I'd like to duck 'em in a mud pond!" muttered the shipowner's son. "It is what they deserve."

"They deserve tar and feathers!" was Roger's comment. "Why, in some places they'd be run out of town. How they ever got into Rockville Academy I can't understand."

"Money sometimes goes a great way," said Dave. "They may have literally bought their way in—that is, their parents may have done it for them."

The three students had passed to the other side of the street. Now they looked down the highway