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 him with outstretched hand, the first to offer him congratulations.

The next five minutes were the minutes of a dream. Never thereafter was he able to tell all that happened or what he did. One picture alone survived in his memory: his father's face back there in the audience flushed and working with emotion, and his mother smiling and wiping her eyes.

And then he was off the stage, with Perry pounding his back, and Bristow clinging to one arm, and Betty Lawton telling him breathlessly how glad she was. One by one, after a time, the class departed and the clamor died away. There was opportunity for a quiet moment with Mr. Rue.

"Many men have gone out from Northfield," the principal said, "but none has left here marked with greater promise. Live up to it, my boy; live up to it."

"I'll try to," Praska said humbly. He went to the cloakroom. Mr. Banning and Carlos Dix stood there talking.

"You had a majority of the committee with you from the start," the lawyer told him. "A few held off. They thought that your attitude toward college discounted much that you had done. When I informed them you had decided