But this! ... mumble, mumble, mumble, that's all it was ... rubb-ish! as Miss Tibbet used to say. What! Rubbish? Oh, sinful thought! He laid his fingers dismayfully against his sinning lips. After all, Mottele had nothing to do with the inception of the Bible; neither had father, for that matter. The Bible was something awful and unutterable and it was... Oh, there weren't any words for it! And he'd said rubbish! Yet God would understand he hadn't really meant it. Besides, if God were a young boy kept in mumbling all a Saturday afternoon, He might say unfortunate things about the Bible, even though He's written it all Himself. But how close it was in here! What a headache he had! He wasn't supposed to go into the kitchen and talk to his mother. But it was stuffy, horribly stuffy ... and he knew every word in his _chumish_ seven times over. Oh, not so well as Mottele, oh, no, oh, no! That wasn't to be expected! Did anybody know anything so well as Mottele? How he hated Mottele! He knew that poetry was beginning to have a hold over his affections second only to his mother. But he didn't love poetry half so passionately as he hated Mottele. That reminded him. _He_ wasn't going to let Mottele stick his tongue out at him, after Mottele had polluted the house with his presence at dinner. No, he'd first cut his throat three times, that he would! Where was it now, where was it? He hunted about in his pockets. One possession, and not for intrinsic reasons, Philip prized above all others. It was a smooth chip, several inches long. Some months ago now he had determined to assure himself of some record of the indignities heaped upon him, directly or indirectly caused by Mottele! The idea of the notched stick was very popular with the heroes of romance. Yes, that would be just the thing, a notched stick! His stick was already notched all the way down one side and well down the other. Oh, yes, it was in the left trouser pocket! Strictly he wasn't supposed to transfer anything from his weekday to his Saturday pockets. Nothing must be carried on a Saturday. But he could not afford to be without his notched stick even on Saturdays. It was the only thing which maintained in him a degree of sanity when some peculiarly injurious comparison had been made between Mottele and himself. He clutched t grimly inside his pocket and assured himself of some ultimate and lurid vengeance. Torture perhaps, some form of slow assassination during which Mottele was all the time precisely aware of the assassin. "Kill him!" Harry had suggested. What was that phrase of Channah's? ... "Many a true word's spoken in jest!" He hardly dared to notch the stick while it was still Shabbos. Besides, his knife was in his weekday trousers. He'd not forget ... But this headache! Father would be safely sleeping for a time yet. He'd just creep along the lobby tip-toe and see what his mother was doing.