"It must be dead now, I think," Ikey said, rising.
Carl was proceeding to make an investigation, when Aunt Marcia protested, "Wait till I'm gone, if you please; I don't care to have anything to do with such business," and drawing her skirts about her, she hastily retired.
"There never were such children!" she said to her husband that night. "Think of it—actually killing a cat—and Louise helping!"
"Don't you think it was better than letting the poor thing suffer?" asked tender-hearted Uncle William.
"I don't care, Carl, you needn't laugh," said Louise that same evening; "for cats are neighbors, father says so. Anything or anybody you can help, he said."
"All right, I'll tell Ikey to report it at the G.N. meeting."
"Oh, ho, Mr. Carl! Is that what you are going to do at your club?" cried both his sisters in the same breath.
"Pooh! that is nothing," said Carl, affecting great unconcern, but secretly very much provoked with himself; "we do a great deal more than that."
The girls were excessively pleased over his little slip, and he at last descended from his lofty pinnacle and humbly begged them not to tell Aleck.
The M.Ks. had in their turn christened the boys' club the "Great Noodles," a name in which it was thought Uncle William had a hand.