CHAPTER XVI 

THE BLOWING UP OF THE BRIDGE 

"Say, this is something fierce, Dave!" 

"I agree with you, Roger. I don't see how we are going to do such a long lesson." 

"Old Haskers is getting worse and worse," growled Phil. "I think we ought to report it to Doctor Clay." 

"Just what I think," came from Ben. "He keeps piling it on harder and harder. I think he is trying to break us." 

"Break us?" queried our hero, looking up from his book. 

"Yes, make us miss entirely, you know." 

"Why should he want us to do that?" asked Roger. 

"Then we wouldn't be able to graduate this coming June." 

"Would he be mean enough to do that?" asked Dave. 

"I think he would be mean enough for anything," responded Phil. "Oh, I am not going to stand it!" he cried. 

The boys had just come upstairs, after an extra hard session in their Latin class. All were aroused over the treatment received at the hands of Job Haskers. He had been harsh and dictatorial to the last degree, and several times it had looked as if there might be an outbreak. 

The next day the outbreak came. Phil sprang up in class and denounced the unreasonable teacher, and Ben followed. Then Dave and Roger took a hand, and so did Buster and several others. 

"Sit down! Sit down!" cried Job Haskers, growing white in the face. "Sit down, and keep quiet." 

"I won't keep quiet," answered the shipowner's son. "You are treating us unfairly, Mr. Haskers, and I won't stand for it." 
When do they graduate?
graduate this coming June