"What they chiefly need," he murmured, his face becoming more and more intent, "what they--chiefly--need--is--" He was laboring hard. Then suddenly his face brightened into a foolish smile. "I got it," he cried triumphantly, "I got it. What kids need is beef bones an' soap!" In the deathly silence that followed his statement Toby looked for approving glances. But he looked in vain. Sunny had dropped his pen and made a blot on his paper. Sandy's annoyance had changed into malicious triumph. But the president of the Trust made no move. He merely let his small eyes emit a steely glance over the top of his paper, directed with stern disapproval on the hopeful "remittance" man. "An' what 'bug-house,'" he inquired, with biting sarcasm, "is your bright friends spendin' their vacation at?" Toby flushed to the roots of his unkempt hair. The sudden death of his triumph was almost tragic. His face fell, and his heavy jaw dropped in pathetic astonishment. But it was not Bill's sarcasm alone that so bit into his bones, it was the jeering light he witnessed in Sandy's eyes, combined with the undisguised ridicule of Sunny's open grin. His blood began to rise; he felt it tingling in the great extremities of his long arms. The obvious retort of the witless was surging through his veins and driving him. But the Trust president was talking, and the calm of coming storm was held for a moment. But it is doubtful if the object of his harangue grasped anything of his meaning, so great was his anger against his grinning comrades. "Beef bones an' soap!" cried Bill harshly, at the unheeding man. "If they was asses bones we'd sure only need to open up your family mausoleum to git enough bones to raise a farm o' babbies on. I'd like to say right here, the feller wot don't know the natural use o' soap is a danger to the health an' sanitary fixin's o' this yer camp. Beef bones an' soap!" he went on, as though the very combination of the words was an offense to his gastronomical senses. "You pumpkin-faced idjut, you mush-headed tank o' wisdom, you masterpiece of under-done mule brain, how in sizzlin' torment you're figgerin' to ladle soap into the vitals of inoffendin' babbies, an' push beef bones through their innercent stummicks, 'ud par'lize the brains of every science society in this yer country to know, an' drive the whole world o' physic dealers barkin' like a pack o' mangy coyotes wi' their bellies flappin' in a nor'-east blizzard. Gosh-dang it, you misfortunate offspring of Jonah parents, we're settin' out to raise kids. We ain't startin' a patent manure fact'ry, nor runnin' a Chinese hand laundry--"