sed the mill on the way to the swimming-hole, Gizzard,
the painter's son, doubtless with inherited instinct, spied on a window
sill by the loading platform a can of black paint and a brush, of which
Sube, the lawyer's son, likewise with inherited instinct, took immediate
possession so they wouldn't get knocked off on the ground, as he
explained to Gizzard.

Sube tarried on the bridge long enough to leave Biscuit's misshapen
initials on the white hand-rail, and then passed on to the pool, where
he found most of the boys ready for the plunge, having stripped off
their clothing as they walked.

Biscuit was in the throes of peeling off his undershirt, which had
come so far as to envelop his head, but refused to come farther. As he
struggled his bare white back arched invitingly before Sube's yearning
eyes. The temptation was too strong for Sube. He yielded. And with one
bold stroke of the brush he transformed the skin along Biscuit's spine
from the purest Caucasian to the shiniest Senegambian.

With an angry bleat Biscuit tore off the shirt and turned on his
complacent decorator. "You wipe that off'n me or I'll--!"

"Oh! Will you?--Well, all right. Turn around and I'll wipe it off." And
Sube calmly dipped his brush into the paint. "Turn around, Biscuit. Turn
your back to Uncle Sube!"

"Don't you put any more of that nasty stuff on me!" bellowed Biscuit.

"But, Biscuit," pleaded Sube in the soft voice of a painless dentist
about to extract a molar, "we've _got_ to 'nitiate you, ain't we? Now
ain't we, Biscuit?"

This conversation was designed to draw Biscuit's attention so that
Gizzard might deliver a rear attack, which he did with complete success.
For, an instant later Biscuit was extended face downward on the ground
and securely held by his little friends while Sube stood over him, brush
in hand, ready to complete his work of art.

"Watch me closely, ladies and gent'mun," Sube declaimed with solemnity,
"for I am about to confer on this can'idate the Order of the Golden
Fish. This name, ladies and gent'mun, is given to this can'idate on
account of his bein' a trick swimmer. He claims he can do the creep, and
the bludgeon, and the shears. In our future consuls he will be called
'The Pike,' ladies and gent'mun, note the name, 'The Pike!' I will now
give him the stripes that belong to him!"

He at once proceeded to do so.

Biscuit howled lustily, but quite ineffectually. The stripes were given
with extreme delicac