"Dammy Darling," whispered a broken and tear-stained voice outside
Dam's locked and keyless door the next morning, "are you dead yet?"

"Nit," was the prompt reply, "but I'm starving to death, fast."

"I am so glad," was the sobbed answer, "for I've got some flat food to
push under the door."

"Shove it under," said Dam. "Good little beast!"

"I didn't know anything about the fearful fracass until tea-time,"
continued Lucille, "and then I went straight to Grumper and confessed,
and he sent me to bed on an empty stummick and I laid upon it, the bed
I mean, and howled all night, or part of it anyhow. I howled for your
sake, not for the empty stummick. I thought my howls would break or at
least soften his hard heart, but I don't think he heard them. I'm sure
he didn't, in fact, or I should not have been allowed to howl so loud
and long.... Did he blame you with anger as well as injustice?"

"With a stick," was the reply. "What about that grub?"

"I told him you were an innocent unborn babe and that Justice had had
a mis-carriage, but he only grinned and said you had got C.B. and dry
bread for insilence in the Orderly Room. What is 'insilence'?"

"Pulling Havlan's leg, I s'pose," opined Dam. "What about that _grub_?
There comes a time when you are too hungry to eat and then you die.
I--"

"Here it is," squealed Lucille, "don't go and die after all my