ked door, he employed the minimum of ten
minutes in simulating the bathing process by immense disturbances in the
bathtub, produced without recourse to disrobing processes, while
gleefully chanting:

"Mother may I go out to swim?
Yes, my darling daughter.
Hang your clothes on a hickory limb
But don't go near the water!
Don't go near, don't go near, don't go near the water!"

Publicly Skippy stood pledged to this uncompromising defiance of the
Powers That Be, so with Slops Barnett's accusing glance on him, he
answered hastily:

"I caught an awful cold and got to steam it out!"

"Faker!"

"Honest, Slops."

At this moment a dripping sponge came spinning through the air and
struck the young irreconcilable squarely between the shoulders.

"If Pee-wee Davis threw that sponge I'll skin him alive," announced
Slops wrathfully. Instantly the air was filled with flying sponges.
Towels, like dripping comets, passed and re-passed, while Doc Cubberly
came hobbling in, threatening, imploring and dodging stray missiles.

Skippy, safe below the surface, watched this bombardment swing over
head, die out and silence return. One by one his fellow prisoners
emerged, vociferous, hilarious, and passed moist and voicing
imprecations into the outer region. Still Skippy continued gorgeously to
steam and doze.

Then a sharp rat-tat-tat on the door.

"Mr. Bedelle?"

"Hello, Doc!"

"Time's up."

"All right, almost dressed. Coming fast."

The crucial moment had arrived, the tragic end to all happiness below,
that inevitable moment when he must, by some supreme exercise of the
will, rise out of this blissful warmth and stretch a reluctant arm
through the chilly air to let in the cold water. End of dreams and chill
return of reality! He temporized. A second time Doc Cubberly's sliding
step arrived.

"Mr. Bedelle--Mr. Bee-delle!"

"Just buttoning on my collar, Doc!"

For the hundredth time, one foot slowly emerged and five over-civilized
toes sought in vain to turn the round faucet labeled "Cold." A hundred,
yes a thousand times, he had attempted the apelike expedient before the
final mental determination to rise out of the warm spell into the frigid
air.

"Gee, if I could only turn that with my foot," he said. "Lord, what a
cinch that would be!"

He tried a last ineffectual time, jerked up precipitately, shot out his
arm, let in the cold water and dodged back below the