of the shack. Sam and Herman and Verman stood in attitudes of rigid
attention, shoulder to shoulder, while Penrod Schofield, facing them,
was apparently delivering some sort of exhortation, which he read from a
scribbled sheet of foolscap. Concluding this, he lifted from the ground
a long and somewhat warped clothes-prop, from one end of which hung
a whitish flag, or pennon, bearing an inscription. Sam and Herman and
Verman lifted their right hands, while Penrod placed the other end of
the clothes-prop in a hole in the ground, with the pennon fluttering
high above the shack. He then raised his own right hand, and the four
boys repeated something in concert. It was inaudible to Mrs. Williams;
but she was able to make out the inscription upon the pennon. It
consisted of the peculiar phrase "In-Or-In" done in black paint upon a
muslin ground, and consequently seeming to be in need of a blotter.

It recurred to her mind, later that evening, when she happened to find
herself alone with Sam in the library, and, in merest idle curiosity,
she asked: "Sam, what does 'In-Or-In' mean?"

Sam, bending over an arithmetic, uncreased his brow till it became of a
blank and marble smoothness.

"Ma'am?"

"What are those words on your flag?"

Sam gave her a long, cold, mystic look, rose to his feet and left the
room with emphasis and dignity. For a moment she was puzzled. But Sam's
older brother was this year completing his education at a university,
and Mrs. Williams was not altogether ignorant of the obligations of
secrecy imposed upon some brotherhoods; so she was able to comprehend
Sam's silent withdrawal, and, instead of summoning him back for further
questions, she waited until he was out of hearing and then began to
laugh.

Sam's action was in obedience to one of the rules adopted, at his own
suggestion, as a law of the order. Penrod advocated it warmly. From
Margaret he had heard accounts of her friends in college and thus had
learned much that ought to be done. On the other hand, Herman subscribed
to it with reluctance, expressing a decided opinion that if he and
Verman were questioned upon the matter at home and adopted the line of
conduct required by the new rule, it would be well for them to depart
not only from the room in which the questioning took place but from the
house, and hurriedly at that. "An' STAY away!" he concluded.

Verman, being tongue-tied--not without advantage in this case, and
surely an ideal qualifi