before dark. As they rolled up the driveway a surprise awaited them.

   "Look who's here!" exclaimed Dave. "Hello there, Luke!"

   "Hello yourself," answered Luke Watson, with a broad grin. "I thought you chaps would be along soon."

   "And Shadow!" cried Roger, as another form came into view, from the Morr piazza. "This is a surprise! I didn't expect to see you quite so soon."

   "Oh, we hadn't anything special to do, so we came ahead," answered Luke. "Hope it won't put you out?"

   "Not at all, glad you are here." There was a general handshaking, for the automobile had now come to a stop and the boys had piled out to greet their former schoolmates.

   "Say, that puts me in mind of a story!" burst out Shadow Hamilton. "A fellow made a date with a girl for six o'clock. Well, at five—"

   "Wow!"

   "Shadow is onto the game already!"

   "Say, Shadow, give us a chance to say how-do-you-do first, won't you?"

   "I believe Shadow would try to tell a story if he was going to a funeral."

   "Oh, say!" burst out the former story-teller of Oak Hall. "That puts me in mind of another. Two Irishmen went to a funeral and——"

   "Shut him off!"

   "Put a popcorn ball in his mouth!"

   "Make him apologize on the spot!"

   At once the four others surrounded the would-be story-teller and pushed him from the gravel path to the green lawn. Then followed something of a wrestling match, all the lads taking part.

   "Let up, will you!" panted Shadow, breaking away at last. "I won't tell any stories if you don't want to listen to 'em. But just the same, that story about the Irishmen was a good one. And that about the fellow who went to see the girl at five o'clock is a corker. You see his watch had stopped and he——"

   "Jump him!"

   "He can't stop, no matter how hard he 

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