They halted by the bunk-house door, undecided whether to go in or to stay out in the open.
"By golly, she don't improve me!" Slim asserted pettishly. "I hate books like strychnine, and, by golly, she can't make me read 'em, neither."
"If there's anything I do despise it's po'try," groaned Cal Emmett.
"Emerson and Browning and Shakespeare and Gatty," named Andy gloomily.
Whereat Pink suddenly pushed open the door and went in as goes one who knows exactly what he is about to do. They followed him distressfully and silently. Pink went immediately to his bunk and began pulling off his boots.
"I'm going to bed," he told them. "You fellows can stay up and entertain her if yuh want to—I won't!"
They caught the idea and disrobed hastily, though the evening was young. Irish blew out the lamp and dove under the blankets just as voices came faintly from up the hill, so that when Chip rapped a warning with his knuckles on the door, there was no sound within save an artificial snore from the corner where lay Pink. Chip was not in the habit of knocking before he entered, but he repeated the summons with emphasis.
"Who's there-e?" drawled sleepily a voice—the voice of Weary.
"Oh, I do believe they've retired!" came, in a perturbed feminine tone, to the listening ears of the Happy Family.
"Gone to bed?" cried Chip gravely.