"How are we going to hit back at a fellow who has a newspaper that he can use as a club on your head ?" "We might have a piece put in 'The Evening Mail,'" hinted Porter, after a dazed silence.

"That's the rival paper." "Yes!" chimed in Bayliss, eagerly.

"We can write a piece and get it put in 'The Mail.' Our piece can say that there has been a tendency, this year, or was believed to be one, to get a rowdyish element of the High School into the High School eleven, and that our move was really a move intended to sustain the past reputation of the Gridley High School for gentlemanly playing in all school sports.

That will hit Dick & Co., and a lot of others, and will turn the laugh back on the muckers." This proposition brought forth several eager cries of approval.
"I see just one flaw in the plan," observed Hudson slowly.
"What is it ?" demanded half a dozen at once.
"Why, 'The Evening Mail' is a paper designed to appeal to the more rowdyish element in Gridley politics.

'The Mail's' circulation is about all among the class of people who come nearest to being 'rowdyish.' So I'm pretty certain, fellows, that 'The Mail' wouldn't take up our cause, and hammer our enemies with the word 'rowdy.' 'The Blade' is the paper that circulates among the best people in Gridley." "And Dick Prescott writes for 'The Blade'!" A gloomy silence followed, broken by Bayliss's disconsolate query: "Then, hang it! What can we do ?" And that query stuck hard!.