And in the middle of it Orrin entered on behalf of the house. “Don’t mind us, Orrin; sit down. You don’t know how we respect and admire you. There’s something about your pure, high young forehead, full of the dreams of innocent boyhood, that’s no end fetchin’. It is, indeed.”
“The house sent me to give you this.” He laid a folded sheet of paper on the table and retired with an awful front.
“It’s the resolution! Oh, read it, some one. I’m too silly-sick with laughin’ to see,” said Beetle. Stalky jerked it open with a precautionary sniff. “Phew! Phew! Listen. ‘The house notices with pain and contempt the attitude of indiference’ —how many f’s in indifference, Beetle?”
“Two for choice.”
“Only one here—‘adopted by the occupants of Number Five study in relation to the insults offered to Mr. Prout’s house at the recent meeting in Number Twelve form-room, and the House hereby pass a vote of censure on the said study.’ That’s all.” “And she bled all down my shirt, too!” said Beetle.
“An’ I’m catty all over,” said McTurk, “though I washed twice.”
“An’ I nearly broke Beetle’s brolly plantin’ her where she would blossom!”
The situation was beyond speech, but not laughter. There was some attempt that night to demonstrate against the three in their dormitory; so they came forth.
“You see,” Beetle began suavely as he loosened his braces, “the trouble with you is that you’re a set of unthinkin’ asses. You’ve no more brains than spidgers. We’ve told you that heaps of times, haven’t we?”
“We’ll give the three of you a dormitory lickin’. You always jaw at us as if you were prefects,” cried one.