"They've been calling us stinkers for a week now," said McTurk. "Oh,
_won't_ they catch it!"

"Stinker! Yah! Stink-ah!" rang down the corridor.

"And she's there," said Stalky, a hand on either boy's shoulder.
"She--is--there, gettin' ready to surprise 'em. Presently she'll
begin to whisper to 'em in their dreams. Then she'll whiff. Golly,
how she'll whiff! Oblige me by thinkin' of it for two minutes."

They went to their study in more or less of silence. There they began
to laugh--laugh as only boys can. They laughed with their foreheads
on the tables, or on the floor; laughed at length, curled over the
backs of chairs or clinging to a book-shelf; laughed themselves limp.

And in the middle of it Orrin entered on behalf of the house. "Don't
mind us, Orrin; sit down. You don't know how we respect and admire
you. There's something about your pure, high young forehead, full of
the dreams of innocent boyhood, that's no end fetchin'. It is,
indeed."

"The house sent me to give you this." He laid a folded sheet of paper
on the table and retired with an awful front.

"It's the resolution! Oh, read it, some one. I'm too silly-sick with
laughin' to see," said Beetle. Stalky jerked it open with a
precautionary sniff. "Phew! Phew! Listen.
'_The_house_notices_with_pain_and_contempt_the_attitude_of_indiference_'
--how many f's in indifference, Beetle?"