Both Mr.Edwards and Mr.Hall took active parts in municipal affairs and so were forced to meet often and to even serve together on various committees.

They almost invariably took opposite sides on every question, but they did not allow their personal quarrel to interfere with their public duties.
The boys had at first found the condition of affairs very irksome, but had eventually got used to it.

It was hard not to be able to run in and out of each other's houses as they had done when they had first known each other, but there were plenty of opportunities to be together away from home and they made the most of them and were well-nigh inseparable.
Mr.Edwards had declared, when announcing the fact in the preceding spring, that Steve was to go to boarding school, that he was sending the boy away to remove him from the questionable association of Tom Hall.
But Steve gave little credence to that statement, for he knew that secretly his father thought very well of Tom.

The real reason was that Steve had not been making good progress at high school, owing principally to the fact that he gave too much time to athletics and not enough to study.

Mr.Edwards concluded that at a boarding school Steve would be under a stricter discipline and would profit by it.