“Honest, Gerald, that kid bothers me to death. I’d change my room if it wasn’t that someone’s got to look after him, and I suppose it might as well be me. Those stamps— And, by the way, it was you started him going when you gave him your collection last year.”
“Oh, he was collecting before that,” said Gerald.
“Yes, I know, but you gave him about a million dollars’ worth of top-notchers, and now he’s trying to live up to them. Why, that little chump writes letters to the crowned heads of Europe, I believe, in the hope that he will get hold of something new in the way of stamps. And as for catalogues and price-lists and sheets on approval, why, sometimes I can’t find my books for the trash on top!”
“You certainly are in hard luck,” laughed Gerald. “You’d better join the S. P. M. and eradicate Harry and his stamps.”
“What’s that?” asked Arthur.
Gerald told about Alf’s secret society, and Arthur chuckled with glee.
“That’s great,” he declared. “I’d like to join. Think they’ll have me?”
“I guess so. I don’t know, though, whether there are any offices left to be filled. You might have to be just a plain, every-day marauder.”
“You ask Alf if he doesn’t want a high-class poisoner. But say, Gerald, you don’t want to let faculty get wind of it. Secret societies are barred, you know.”