With a single jerk of his arm he scaled the cracker through the open transom. There was a slight scuffle within, following the cracker's fall.
He paused a moment and then threw a second and a third. Each time the rustling was repeated, and Neale kept up the bombardment believing that, although the girls did not speak, the shower of crackers was falling upon the guilty.
One after the other he flung the crackers through the transom until they were all discharged. Not a sound now from the bombarded quarters. Chuckling, Neale stole away, sure that he would have a big laugh on Agnes in the morning.
But before he got back into his wing of the house, he spied a candle with a girl in a pink kimono behind it.
"Whatever do you want out here, Neale O'Neil? A drink?"
It was Ruth. Neale was full of tickle over his joke, and he had to relate it.
"I've just been paying off that smart sister of yours in her own coin," he chuckled.
"Which smart sister?"
"Why, Agnes."
"But how?"