"Oh, shut up, Stalky."

"Not a bit of it. You're a gaudy lot of resolutionists, you are!
You've made a sweet mess of it. Perhaps you'll have the decency to
leave us alone next time."

Here the house grew angry, and in many voices pointed out how this
blunder would never have come to pass if Number Five study had helped
them from the first.

"But you chaps are so beastly conceited, an'--an' you swaggered into
the meetin' as if we were a lot of idiots," growled Orrin of the
resolution.

"That's precisely what you are! That's what we've been tryin' to
hammer into your thick heads all this time," said Stalky. "Never
mind, we'll forgive you. Cheer up. You can't help bein' asses, you
know," and, the enemy's flank deftly turned, Stalky hopped into bed.

That night was the first of sorrow among the jubilant King's. By some
accident of under-floor drafts the cat did not vex the dormitory
beneath which she lay, but the next one to the right; stealing on the
air rather as a pale-blue sensation than as any poignant offense. But
the mere adumbration of an odor is enough for the sensitive nose and
clean tongue of youth. Decency demands that we draw several
carbolized sheets over what the dormitory said to Mr. King and what
Mr. King replied. He was genuinely proud of his house and fastidious
in all that concerned their well-being. He came; he sniffed; he said
things. Next morning a boy in that dormitory confided to his bosom