ys near HALF Georgie's size but Georgie
got mad and said he didn't want any ole nigger to paddle him. That's
what he said, and it was his own foolishness, because Verman won't let
ANYBODY call him 'nigger', and if Georgie was goin' to call him that he
ought to had sense enough not to do it when he was layin' down that way
and Verman all ready to be the paddler. And he needn't of been so mad at
the rest of us, either, because it took us about twenty minutes to get
the paddle away from Verman after that, and we had to lock Verman up
in the laundry-room and not let him out till it was all over. Well, and
then things were kind of spoiled, anyway; so we didn't do but just a
little more--and that's all."

"Go on! What was the 'just a little more?'"

"Well--we got him to swaller a little teeny bit of asafidity that Penrod
used to have to wear in a bag around his neck. It wasn't enough to even
make a person sneeze--it wasn't much more'n a half a spoonful--it wasn't
hardly a QUARTER of a spoonf--"

"Ha!" said Mr. Williams. "That accounts for the doctor. What else?"

"Well--we--we had some paint left over from our flag, and we put just a
little teeny bit of it on his hair and--"

"Ha!" said Mr. Williams. "That accounts for the barber. What else?"

"That's all," Sam said, swallowing. "Then he got mad and went home."

Mr. Williams walked to the door, and sternly motioned to the culprit to
precede him through it. But just before the pair passed from her sight,
Mrs. Williams gave way to an uncontrollable impulse.

"Sam," she asked, "what does 'In-Or-In' stand for?"

The unfortunate boy had begun to sniffle.

"It--it means--Innapenent Order of Infadelaty," he moaned--and plodded
onward to his doom.

Not his alone: at that very moment Master Roderick Magsworth Bitts,
Junior, was suffering also, consequent upon telephoning on the part of
Mrs. Bassett, though Roderick's punishment was administered less on
the ground of Georgie's troubles and more on that of Roddy's having
affiliated with an order consisting so largely of Herman and Verman. As
for Maurice Levy, he was no whit less unhappy. He fared as ill.

Simultaneously, two ex-members of the In-Or-In were finding their lot
fortunate. Something had prompted them to linger in the alley in
the vicinity of the shack, and it was to this fated edifice that Mr.
Williams, with demoniac justice, brought Sam for the deed he had in
mind.

Herman and Verman listened--awe-stricken--t