flag in enamel, and the
"cleanest-shoes-for-a-month" prize had been a pair of roller skates.

The masculine element of the Room 18's Board of Monitors met that
afternoon in the cellar of a recently burned tenement to discuss the
situation. If it would pleasure Miss Bailey to see her adherents racing
round a garden in abbreviated costumes, there was, they decided, no very
serious reason against giving her that pleasure. It was only a shade
more unreasonable than other desires of hers to which they had bent
their energies, and since there was question of reward, it became even
more a duty and a pleasure to oblige her.

"But we ain't got no Gardens," Nathan Spiderwitz pointed out.

"We'll use my yard," said Patrick. "When me mother has company she
always calls our yard a garden. It's got a tree in it, and we can get
some flags to hang on the clothes line. I was askin' me big brother last
night, and he knows all about them games. He'll tell us mor'n Ikey
Borrachsohn can about how the thing goes, and when we get it fixed just
right, we'll have Miss Bailey and the girls come round some Saturday
morning and see us run and jump. Say, it'll be great! I can run faster
than any feller in the class; an' I bet I can jump higher too, an' I bet
I can throw things farther, too, an' I bet I can lick ye all
pole-vaultin', too. Me brother was tellin' me about that."

"I don't know what is 'pole-vaultin' even," said Morris, and asked with
some natural curiosity what parts he and other possible competitors were
to take in these Games in Gardens.

"Oh, you," answered Patrick, with happy condescension, "you all is goin'
to get licked. That's what you're goin' to do. Don't you worry."

But this role did not appeal strongly to either of his colleagues.

"I don't know do I likes gettin' licked," Morris objected with some
reason.

"Und I don't know _will_ I get licked," said Nathan Spiderwitz, the
valorous. "I jumped once, und I run too. I jumped off of a wagon. A
awful big grocery wagon, mit crackers on it. Und I jumped when it was
goin'. Und I run like an'thin'."

"You was throwed off," taunted Patrick, "you was throwed off by the man
when he seen you hookin' crackers."

"Ye lie," said Nathan frankly. "I jumped as soon as he seen me, und I
guess I can jump some more. You ain't the only boy what can run und
jump, you old-show-of-freshy Irisher."

It was with difficulty that the peaceful Monitor of the Gold Fish Bowl
restored harmony