"You should have seen the set of papers I got back today. There it was, all that I had given them, in great heavy undigested lumps—"
"Like footballs," suggested Mrs. Norris.
"Once I was funny with them," went on Tom, "and I may say that I was properly punished. They put it all down in their notebooks and then mixed it up with everything they shouldn't have mixed it up with—and I shall never be funny again."
"I shall give you at least two grains——"
"Then there are the young men who get off all the stale old facts and expect an A. One of them came to me yesterday, when I had given him a C, and whined around my desk until I finally told him I did not consider his performance remarkable in a young man of eighteen, however much so it might be in a poll parrot of the same age."
"Now that was wrong. Were there other boys around?"
"Yes."
"Well, you simply must not go do that kind of thing. They'll hate it."
"I know it was wrong, but I am rather amused by it. As a matter of fact, I can stand anything but the ones who think they can fool me with a lot of embroidery and gas. They're insulting——"
"Why, Tommy, you were doing the same thing yourself only three or four years ago. You mustn't get so snufty so soon."