"Oh! Well, why didn't you say so?" said Snorky, feeling a little ashamed. "Perhaps after all asa--asa--well, whatever it is, will come out in the wash, too." "If it does," said Greaser proudly, "I've got something worse." "Worse!" said Snorky, with a sinking heart. "_Worse!_" said Skippy joyfully. "If you put that on," said Greaser, meditating, "the socks will be better than mosquito-proof--even rattlesnakes wouldn't bite you!" "Criminy! What is it?" "I know what it is," said Greaser, wagging his head wisely, "but I can't pronounce it!" * * * * * Events now moved rapidly. The following morning, despite the draft which entered through three windows and swept out the door, the Roman stopped the morning recitation after five minutes of indignant commotion in the class and, making a detailed investigation, dispensed with the presence of Mr. Snorky Green, Mr. Skippy Bedelle and Mr. Greaser Tunxton (the last with incredulous chagrin) with a request to produce each individual bath record for the week. At eight o'clock that night Snorky Green deserted the communal laboratory, bag and baggage, announcing that he was through once and for all, and sought asylum of Dennis de Brian de Boru. Finnegan, after the first whiff, barricaded the door and seized a baseball bat to repel any aggression via the transom. At eight-thirty, the inhabitants of the second floor held an indignation meeting on the steps. "Holy Moses! What is it?" said the Triumphant Egghead, smelling in the direction of the offending room. "It's a dead cat." "Smells like ripe sauerkraut and garlic!" "No, it smells like asafoetida." "The deuce you say! Asafoetida is a maiden's perfume to this!" "Well, some one's dead." "It's the Greaser, then." "My Lord! This is awful!" "Skippy's found a pet skunk." "How in blazes are we going to stand it?" "We won't." When the odor had finally rolled down the stairs a house meeting was called and the offenders were summoned to appear. Skippy Bedelle and Greaser Tunxton responded and the house adjourned through the windows. Now it happened that the Roman was dining in Princeton that night and the conduct of discipline was in the hands of a young assistant master, lately transferred from the wilds of the Dickinson, Mr. Lorenzo Blackstone Tapping. Tabby, as he was more affectionately known, was apt to be somewhat confused, as is natural, before an extraordinary crisis, and had made one or two lamentable blunders. In the present case, after immediately sending in a hurry call for the plumber, he departed in a panic for Foundation House, holding before him on a pair of tongs a pair of reeking football stockings which he had seized in the wash basin, while Skippy Bedelle, under strict orders, remained twenty paces to the rear and out of the wind.