At the end of a month the high heels and the festive raiment appeared again, and the staff knew that the time for action had really come. They must bring the Krisht to terms before he should see Teacher in her present and irresistible array. He was always first at the trysting place, and there they would have speech with him. They arranged to escape from Room 18 before three o'clock. The Commander-in-Chief feigned a nose-bleed, the Prime Minister developed an inward agony, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after some moments of indecision, boldly plucked out a tottering tooth and followed—bloody but triumphant—in their wake. They found the enemy just as they had expected, and Morris, being again elected spokesman, stepped forward and took him by his dastard hand. The adversary yielded, thinking that Teacher had been forced to greater caution. The Commander-in-Chief and the Chancellor followed close behind, they having consented, in view of the enormous issues involved, to act as scouts. Around the corner they went into a dark and narrow alley, and, when they had reached a secluded spot between the high wall of the school and the blank windows of a recently burned tenement house, Morris began:
"Teacher don't wants to go on the party mit you the while she ain't got no more that kind feeling over you."
"What?" cried the astonished Doctor Ingraham.
"She don't wants to be married mit you."
"Did Miss Bailey send you with any message to me?"
The question was so fierce that the truth was forced from the unwilling lips of the spokesman.
"No ma'an—no sir," they faltered. "On'y that's the feeling what she had. Und so you go away now 'out seeing Teacher, me und the other fellows we gives you FIVE cents."
The cabinet drew near to hear the answer to this suggestion. It puzzled them, for—
"Now, look here, boy," said Doctor Ingraham, "you'd better go home and get to bed. You aren't well."
Morris conferred with his colleagues and returned with: