But Georgie did. It is difficult to imagine how cause and effect could be more closely and patently related. Inevitably, Georgie did come poking around. How was he to refrain when daily, up and down the neighbourhood, the brothers strutted with mystic and important airs, when they whispered together and uttered words of strange import in his presence? Thus did they defeat their own object. They desired to keep Georgie at a distance, yet they could not refrain from posing before him. They wished to impress upon him the fact that he was an outsider, and they but succeeded in rousing his desire to be an insider, a desire that soon became a determination. For few were the days until he not only knew of the shack but had actually paid it a visit. That was upon a morning when the other boys were in school, Georgie having found himself indisposed until about ten o'clock, when he was able to take nourishment and subsequently to interest himself in this rather private errand. He climbed the Williams' alley fence, and, having made a modest investigation of the exterior of the shack, which was padlocked, retired without having disturbed anything except his own peace of mind. His curiosity, merely piqued before, now became ravenous and painful. It was not allayed by the mystic manners of the members or by the unnecessary emphasis they laid upon their coldness toward himself; and when a committee informed him darkly that there were “secret orders” to prevent his coming within “a hundred and sixteen feet”--such was Penrod's arbitrary language--of the Williams' yard, “in any direction”, Georgie could bear it no longer, but entered his own house, and, in burning words, laid the case before a woman higher up. Here the responsibility for things is directly traceable to grown people. Within that hour, Mrs. Bassett sat in Mrs. Williams's library to address her hostess upon the subject of Georgie's grievance. “Of course, it isn't Sam's fault,” she said, concluding her interpretation of the affair. “Georgie likes Sam, and didn't blame him at all. No; we both felt that Sam would always be a polite, nice boy--Georgie used those very words--but Penrod seems to have a VERY bad influence. Georgie felt that Sam would WANT him to come and play in the shack if Penrod didn't make Sam do everything HE wants. What hurt Georgie most is that it's SAM'S shack, and he felt for another boy to come and tell him that he mustn't even go NEAR it--well, of course, it was very trying. And he's very much hurt with little Maurice Levy, too. He said that he was sure that even Penrod would be glad to have him for a member of their little club if it weren't for Maurice--and I think he spoke of Roddy Bitts, too.” The fact that the two remaining members were coloured was omitted from this discourse which leads to the deduction that Georgie had not mentioned it.