CHAPTER XXVI.
A GRAND PROPOSITION.
The summer vacation was now over, and the Board of Managers of the telegraph company, as well as the other boys of the vicinity, were obliged to go to school again and study something besides the arts of making money and transacting telegraphic business.

But as there was not much business of this kind to be done, the school interfered with the company's affairs in little else than the collection of money due from private individuals for telegraphic services rendered during the late "rise" in the creek.

The committee which had charge of this collection labored very faithfully for some time, and before and after school and during the noon recess, the members thereof made frequent visits to the houses of the company's debtors.

As there were not more than half-a-dozen debtors, it might have been supposed that the business would be speedily performed.

But such was not the case.