Page:The spirit of the leader (IA spiritofleader00heyl).pdf/38

 chair and started back toward his desk. Sometimes mistakes can be retrieved! The words kept echoing in his mind. Sometimes. Abruptly he turned about and went back to Mr. Banning's desk.

The attendance sheet lay where it had been left early in the afternoon. The teacher of civics, reading a book and marking it, did not look up to see what Perry might be doing. The boy found a rubber in his pocket. With his long, thin body draped ungracefully over the desk he erased the thing he had written that afternoon and in its place put a matter-of-fact "12:45." Still Mr. Banning did not look up from his book.

With eyes lowered Perry returned to his desk. Had his head been lifted he would have seen Littlefield looking after him at first with a frown and then with a quiet smile. And had he looked back he would have seen that Mr. Banning was covertly surveying him over the top of the book.

More than once, that night, Perry's cheeks flushed at the memory of practical jokes with which he had hocus-pocused the school. At the time he had viewed these deceptions as mere fun; now they taunted him with the fact that they had written his reputation as a trickster. He had let his prankish moods sway him, and had not looked ahead. No wonder the football crowd,