school. About the entryway to the stairs were various tin signs,
announcing the occupation and location of upper-floor tenants, and
Georgie decided to take some of these with him if he should ever go to
college. However, he did not stop to collect them at this time, but
climbed the worn stairs--there was no elevator--to the fourth floor,
went down a dark corridor, and rapped three times upon a door. It was
a mysterious door, its upper half, of opaque glass, bearing no sign to
state the business or profession of the occupants within; but
overhead, upon the lintel, four letters had been smearingly inscribed,
partly with purple ink and partly with a soft lead pencil, "F. O. T.
A." and upon the plaster wall, above the lintel, there was a drawing
dear to male adolescence: a skull and crossbones.

Three raps, similar to Georgie's, sounded from within the room.
Georgie then rapped four times the rapper within the room rapped
twice, and Georgie rapped seven times. This ended precautionary
measures; and a well-dressed boy of sixteen opened the door; whereupon
Georgie entered quickly, and the door was closed behind him. Seven
boys of congenial age were seated in a semicircular row of damaged
office chairs, facing a platform whereon stood a solemn, red-haired
young personage with a table before him. At one end of the room there
was a battered sideboard, and upon it were some empty beer bottles, a
tobacco can about two-thirds full, with a web of mold over the surface
of the tobacco, a dusty cabinet photograph (not inscribed) of Miss
Lillian Russell, several withered old pickles, a caseknife, and a
half-petrified section of icing-cake on a sooty plate. At the other
end of the room were two rickety card-tables and a stand of
bookshelves where were displayed under dust four or five small volumes
of M. Guy de Maupassant's stories, "Robinson Crusoe," "Sappho," "Mr.
Barnes of New York," a work by Giovanni Boccaccio, a Bible, "The