grew older, his insatiate curiosity enabled him to expose
unnumbered weaknesses, indiscretions, and social misfortunes on the part
of acquaintances and schoolmates; and to every exposure his noise and
energy gave a hideous publicity: the more his victim sought privacy the
more persistently he was followed by Wallie, vociferous and attended by
hilarious spectators. But above all other things, what most stimulated
the demoniac boy to prodigies of satire was a tender episode or any
symptom connected with the dawn of love. Florence herself had suffered
at intervals throughout her eleventh summer because Wallie discovered
that Georgie Beck had sent her a valentine; and the humorist's many,
many squealings of that valentine's affectionate quatrain finally left
her unable to decide which she hated the more, Wallie or Georgie. That
was the worst of Wallie: he never "let up"; and in Florence's circle
there was no more sobering threat than, "I'll tell Wallie Torbin!" As
for Henry Rooter and Herbert Illingsworth Atwater, Jr., they would as
soon have had a Head-hunter on their trail as Wallie Torbin in the
possession of anything that could incriminate them in an implication of
love--or an acknowledgment (in their own handwriting!) of their own
beauty.

The fabric of civilized life is interwoven with blackmail: even some of
the noblest people do favours for other people who are depended upon not
to tell somebody something that the noblest people have done. Blackmail
is born into us all, and our nurses teach us more blackmail by
threatening to tell our parents if we won't do this and that--and our
parents threaten to tell the doctor--and so we learn! Blackmail is part
of the daily life of a child. Displeased, his first resort to get his
way with other children is a threat to "tell," but by-and-by his
experience discovers the mutual benefit of honour among blackmailers.
Therefore, at eight it is no longer the ticket to threaten to tell the
teacher; and, a little later, threatening to tell any adult at all is
considered something of a breakdown in morals. Notoriously, the code is
more liable to infraction by people of the physically weaker sex, for
the very reason, of course, that their inferiority of muscle so
frequently compels such a sin, if they are to have their way. But for
Florence there was now no such temptation. Looking to the demolition of
Atwater & Rooter, an exposure before adults of the results of "Truth"
would have been