"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--to what went on within the shack. Then, before it was over, they crept away and down the alley toward their own home. This was directly across the alley from the Schofields' stable, and they were horrified at the sounds that issued from the interior of the stable store-room. It was the St. Bartholomew's Eve of that neighbourhood.
"Man, man!" said Herman, shaking his head. "Glad I ain' no white boy!"
Verman seemed gloomily to assent.