The High School Pitcher | Page 6

to this joke-----"
"Joke?" hissed the principal under his breath. "It's an outrage!"
"But intended only as a piece of pleasantry, sir. So I think it will pass
off much better if you don't allow the students to see that they have
annoyed you."
"Why? Do the students want to annoy me?" demanded Mr. Cantwell, in
another angry undertone.
"I wouldn't say that," replied Mr. Drake. "But, if the young men
discover that you are easily teased, they are sufficiently mischief-loving
to try other jokes on you."
"Then a good friend of theirs would advise them not to do so," replied
Mr. Cantwell, with a snap of his jaws.
That closed the matter for the time being. The first recitation period of
the morning had been lost, but now the students, most of them finding
difficulty in suppressing their chuckles, were sent to the various class
rooms.
Before recess came, the principal having a period free from class work,
silently escaped from the building, carrying the thirty-six hundred
pennies to the bank. As that number of pennies weighs something more
than twenty-three pounds, the load was not a light one.
"I have a big lot of pennies here that I want to deposit," he explained to
the receiving teller.

"How many?" asked the teller.
"Thirty-six hundred," replied Mr. Cantwell.
"Are they counted and done up into rolls of fifty, with your name on
each roll?" asked the teller.
"Why---er---no," stammered the principal. "They're just loose---in bulk,
I mean."
"Then I'm very sorry, Mr. Cantwell, but we can't receive them in that
shape, sir. They will have to be counted and wrapped, and your name
written on each roll."
"Do you mean to say that I must take these pennies home, count them
all---again!---and then wrap them and sign the wrappers."
"I'm sorry, but you, or some one will have to do it, Mr. Cantwell."
Then and there the principal exploded. One man there was in the bank
at that moment who was obliged to turn his head away and stifle back
the laughter. That man was Mr. Pollock, of "The Blade." Pollock knew
now what Dick & Co. had wanted of such a cargo of pennies.
"I can't carry this infernal satchel back to school," groaned the principal,
disgustedly. "Some of the boys, when they see me, will realize that the
satchel is still loaded, and they'll know what has happened to me at the
bank. It will make me look fearfully ridiculous to be caught in that
fashion, with the joke against me a second time! And yet I have a class
immediately after recess. What can I do?"
A moment later, however, he had solved the problem. There was a
livery stable not far away, and he knew the proprietor. So to that stable
Mr. Cantwell hurried, changing the satchel from one hand to the other
whenever an arm ached too much.
"This satchel contains a lot of currency, Mr. Getchel," explained the
poor principal. "I wish you could do me the favor of having a horse

hitched up and take this to my wife. Will you do it?"
"Certainly," nodded the liveryman. "Just lock the satchel; that is all. I'll
have the bag at your home within fifteen minutes."
So during the first period after recess Mrs. Cantwell was visited by
Getchel, who handed her the satchel, merely remarking:
"Mr. Cantwell left this at my office, ma'am, and asked me to bring it
down to you. It contains some money that your husband sent you."
Money? The good woman, who "loved" money too well to spend much
of it, hefted the satchel. Gracious! There must be a big lot of the
valuable stuff. But the satchel was locked. Mrs. Cantwell promptly
hunted until she found another satchel key that fitted. Then she opened
the bag, staring at the contents with big eyes.
"What on earth can my husband have been doing?" she wondered.
"Surely he hasn't been robbing the Salvation Army Christmas boxes!
And the idea of sending me money all in pennies!"
The more she thought about it the more indignant did Mrs. Cantwell
become. Finally, a little after noon, Mrs. Cantwell decided to take the
stuff to the bank, have it counted and turned over into greenbacks. So
she trudged up to the bank with it. The journey was something more
than a mile in length. Mrs. Cantwell arrived at the bank, only to make
the same discovery that her husband had made about the need of
counting and wrapping the money before it could be deposited or
exchanged. It was close to one o'clock, and the High School not far
away. So, full of ire, Mrs. Cantwell started down to her husband's place
of employment.
Once school let out for the day, a quarter of a