avely on.

Mr. Van Dam amused himself by blacking the faces of all the pictures in
the room with charcoal. Dennis employed himself for an hour and a half
in whittling off with a jack-knife one leg of every chair in the
apartment, so as to make it four inches shorter than the rest. Wagstaff
collected all the books he could find, and piled them into a shaky
pyramid, which he was preparing to push over with a broomstick upon the
head of the unconscious Higholdboy.

Quackenbush had not been idle; taking advantage of the drowsiness of his
superior officer, he had sewed the bottoms of that gentleman's
pantaloons together with a waxed end, after which he made a moustache on
himself with burned cork, and then painted the left side of his face in
three-cornered patches like a sleepy harlequin, dyed his shirt-collar
scarlet with red ink, and went to sleep in the corner to await the
result, having first tripped up Mr. Overdale, who, by way of a new
variation in his juggling performances, was now trying to balance the
poker on his nose, while he held a rocking-chair in one hand and a
hat-box full of oyster shells in the other. Dropper had a checker-board
before him, and was superintending a game between his right and left
hand.

But suddenly, those of the Elephants who were in their waking senses,
became sensible of a noise outside. It begun at the foot of the stairs,
like the sound of a regiment of crazy Boston watchmen, all springing
their rattles at once. The noise became louder, and seemed to be coming
up the stairs, and now rivalled in sound a mail-train on a race. Now the
uproar became more distinct, and evidently proceeded from some person or
persons outside, who were provided with some ingenious facilities for
kicking up a row, with which ordinary roisterers are unacquainted. These
persons now began a furious attack upon the "outer walls." Mr. Overdale
paused in his plate-breaking occupation, long enough to pour out a few
emphatic sentences, addressed to the individuals outside, in which he
consigned them to a locality too hot for a powder-mill, and then resumed
his practice.

As the door began to shake, Overdale laid down the poker, smashed what
few large pieces of plates were left over the head of the recumbent
Quackenbush, awoke the Higholdboy by rolling him off the table, aroused
the rest of the party by a few kicks in the ribs, and then, undoing the
fastenings of the door, was proceeding to expostulate with the
di