CHAPTER X.
Leading the Town to Athletics "Mr.Morton, we want a little word with you." "All right---anything to please you," laughed the submaster, looking at Dick and Dave as they came up to him in the yard at recess.
"We've been thinking over a plan," Dick continued.
"It has something to do with athletics, then!" guessed the submaster.
"Yes, sir," nodded Dave.
"High School athletics, at that," continued Mr.Morton.
"There you're wrong, sir, for once," smiled Prescott.

"Mr.Morton, we've been thinking of the High School gym.

It's a big place.
Pretty nearly three hundred gymnasts could be drilled there at once." "Yes; I know." "There's a fine lot of apparatus there," went on Dick.

"It cost thousands and thousands of dollars to put that gym.

in shape." "And it's worth every dollar of the cost," contended Mr.Morton firmly.
"Mr.Morton," challenged Dick, "who paid for it ?" "The city government," replied the submaster.
"Where did the city government get the money ?" "From the citizens, of course." "Now, Mr.Morton," went on Prescott, "how many of the citizens get any direct benefit out of that gym.?
Only about a quarter of a thousand of High School students! Couldn't the city's money be spent so that a far greater number would have the use of and benefit from the city's big investment!" "Why," replied the submaster, looking puzzled, "the youngsters in the lower schools have their needs provided for, in some way, in their own school buildings." "True," agreed Dick.