Arabian Nights' Entertainment," "Studies of the Human Form Divine,"
"The Little Minister," and a clutter of monthly magazines and
illustrated weeklies of about that crispness one finds in such
articles upon a doctor's ante-room table. Upon the wall, above the
sideboard, was an old framed lithograph of Miss Della Fox in "Wang";
over the bookshelves there was another lithograph purporting to
represent Mr. John L. Sullivan in a boxing costume, and beside it a
halftone reproduction of "A Reading From Horner." The final
decoration consisted of damaged papiermache--a round shield with two
battle-axes and two cross-hilted swords, upon the wall over the little
platform where stood the red-haired presiding officer. He addressed
Georgie in a serious voice:

"Welcome, Friend of the Ace."

"Welcome, Friend of the Ace," Georgie responded, and all of the other
boys repeated the words, "Welcome, Friend of the Ace."

"Take your seat in the secret semicircle," said the presiding officer.
"We will now proceed to--"

But Georgie was disposed to be informal. He interrupted, turning to
the boy who had admitted him: "Look here, Charlie Johnson, what's
Fred Kinney doing in the president's chair? That's my place, isn't
it? What you men been up to here, anyhow? Didn't you all agree I was
to be president just the same, even if I was away at school?"

"Well--" said Charlie Johnson uneasily. "Listen! I didn't have much
to do with it. Some of the other members thought that long as you
weren't in town or anything, and Fred gave the sideboard, why--"