by yourself without mucking it."

"I've got a notion."

"And you'll spoil the whole show if you don't tell your Uncle Stalky.
Cough it up, ducky, and we'll see what we can do. Notion, you fat
impostor--I knew you had a notion when you went away! Turkey said it
was a poem."

"I've found out how houses are built. Le' me get up. The floor-joists
of one room are the ceiling-joists of the room below."

"Don't be so filthy technical."

"Well, the man told me. The floor is laid on top of those
joists--those boards on edge that we crawled over--but the floor
stops at a partition. Well, if you get behind a partition, same as
you did in the attic, don't you see that you can shove anything you
please under the floor between the floor-boards and the lath and
plaster of the ceiling below? Look here. I've drawn it."

He produced a rude sketch, sufficient to enlighten the allies. There
is no part of the modern school curriculum that deals with
architecture, and none of them had yet reflected whether floors and
ceilings were hollow or solid. Outside his own immediate interests
the boy is as ignorant as the savage he so admires; but he has also
the savage's resource.

"I see," said Stalky. "I shoved my hand there. An' then?"