"Well," Teed drawled, "I'll bring you the cylinders. I'll have to trust you, as one gentleman to another."
"Gentleman!" Litton snarled in hydrophobic frenzy.
"Well, as one lover to another, then," Teed laughed. "Do I get my diploma?"
Litton's head was so heavy he could not nod it.
"It's my diploma in exchange for your records. Come on, Professor—be a sport! And take it from me, it's no fun having the words you whisper in a girl's ear in the dark shouted out loud in the open court. And mine were repeated in a Dutch dialect! I got yours just as they came from your lips—and hers."
That ended it. Litton surrendered, passed himself under the yoke; pledged himself to the loathsome compact, and Teed went to fetch the price of his degree of Bachelor of Arts.
Litton hung dejected beyond feeling for a long while. His heart was whimpering Ai, Ai! He felt himself crushed under a hundred different crimes. He felt that he could never look up again. Then he heard a soft tap at the door. He could not raise his eyes or his voice. He heard the door open and supposed it was Teed bringing him the wages of his shame; but he heard another voice—an unimaginably beautiful, tragically tender voice—crooning:
"Oo-oo! Stookie-tookie!"
He looked up. How radiant she was! He could only sigh. She came across to him as gracefully and lightly as Iris running down a rainbow. She was murmuring:
"I just had to slip over and tell you something."