"He's pretty mad, I guess," said Steinberger.

"Mad as hops," Tembarom answered. "As I was coming down-stairs from
Galton's room he was standing in the hall talking to Miss Dooley, and
he said: `That Tembarom fellow's going to do it! He doesn't know how
to spell. I should like to see his stuff come in.' He said it loud,
because he wanted me to hear it, and he sort of laughed through his
nose."

"Say, T. T., can you spell?" Jim inquired thoughtfully.

"Spell? Me? No," Tembarom owned with unshaken good cheer. "What I've
got to do is to get a tame dictionary and keep it chained to the leg
of my table. Those words with two m's or two l's in them get me right
down on the mat. But the thing that looks biggest to me is how to
find out where the news is, and the name of the fellow that'll put me
on to it. You can't go up a man's front steps and ring the bell and
ask him if he's going to be married or buried or have a pink tea."

"Wasn't that a knock at the door?" said Steinberger.

It was a knock, and Tembarom jumped up and threw the door open,
thinking Mrs. Bowse might have come on some household errand. But it
was Little Ann Hutchinson instead of Mrs. Bowse, and there was a
threaded needle stuck into the front of her dress, and she had on a
thimble.

"I want Mr. Bowles's new socks," she said maternally. "I promised I'd
mark them for him."