“Tell you what, boys:  if I’m not mistaken, Dick Lee’ll pay more for his board than we will for ours.”

“I don’t care,” said Dick bravely.  “It’s wuff a good deal to feed a boy like me.”

His mother had told him so, many a time; and in that matter “Glorianna” had not been so far from the truth.

Ham Morris had indeed made a careful and particular bargain for Dick, and that his duties about the house should not interfere with his studies.  He had done more; for he had insisted on buying Dick’s text-books for him, and had made him promise to write to him about the way things went at Grantley.

Up the street marched the four new boys, still a little slowly, until Ford broke out into a sudden word of encouragement,—­

“Look here, boys, we’re a set of wooden-heads!  I’d like to know if we need be afraid of any thing Joe and Fuz Hart could go through?”

“Well, I guess not,” replied Dab.  “Let’s push ahead.”

He found himself leading the procession when it went through Dr. Brandegee’s front gate; and there was a look of admiration on Dick’s face, when he saw how promptly and courageously “Captain Dab Kinzer” pulled that door-bell.

“This way, please,” said the servant who opened the door,—­“into the library.  The doctor’ll see you in a minute.”

“And we’ll see him,” muttered Ford, as they walked in, and he added in a whisper to Dick,—­

“That’s his portrait.  There, over the mantel.”

“Jes’ so,” said Dick, coming dangerously near smiling; “an’ his name den was Oliver Cromwell, an’ dey dressed him up in sheet iron.”

That was the name printed under the engraving; but the smile had barely time to fade from Dick’s face, before a door opened on the opposite side of the room, and the dreaded Principal of Grantley Academy walked in.

“Good-morning, my young friends.  Glad to see you so early.”

His hand was out towards Dick Lee, as he spoke; and they all had what Ford afterwards called “a good square shake of it,” by the time they recovered their tongues, and replied to that genial, hearty, encouraging welcome.

Dick couldn’t have helped it, if he had tried,—­and he somehow forgot to try,—­a broad grin of delight spread all over his face, as he looked up in that of the doctor.

The latter himself was smiling a good deal as if he could not help it, but he did not know the exact reason why every one of those boys looked so cheerful just then.

The thought in Ford’s mind came within an inch of getting out over his tongue.

“Dwarf?  Why, he’s more like a giant.  How Joe and Fuz Hart did spin it!”

The great man was certainly a good “six feet two,” and all his bodily proportions were correspondingly ample.

Frank Harley was the last to be shaken hands with, and so had time to think,—­

“Afraid of him?  Why, he’s too big to be afraid of.  We’re all right.”