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 those tax figures and we'll begin to stir the pot. I'll do my bit. You get the rest of the school to campaign at home and among the neighbors. Just get me some figures, and I'll use them as a peg to hang up some snappy articles."

Praska got the figures that afternoon. The gray-haired chief clerk in the Tax Assessor's office took him back among the assessment books and speedily gave him the information he sought.

"I think I know what you're after," the man said. "If you high school fellows are going to try to get that athletic field, I'd buzz around and see the lawyers and the real estate men."

"Why?" Praska asked eagerly.

"Some of the people who own these lots do business through lawyers and real estate brokers. If a real estate man has a client who owns any of that property he'll help you put it over for the sake of his client. If a lawyer has a client who owns some of that property he'll lend a hand to help you put it over, too. There may be a little commission money in it for them."

Praska thanked the man and walked out into the rotunda of the City Hall. The list he had in his pocket showed that B. B. Ballinger, Northfield's leading real estate broker, owned six of the lots in the rear of the high school. There would be at least one real estate man, he thought,