steps, stooped to
tighten a shoe lace and arrived breathlessly before Doc Cubberly, who
was eyeing him, watch in hand.

Thirty seconds later he was contemplating the tips of his toes from the
warm and delicious water, yielding to the relaxing ecstasy of pleasant
day dreams. He had no quarrel with water as such, though from principle
and to remain regular he rebelled against the element of compulsion, but
water, particularly warm water, brought him a quickening of the
imagination.

Now between water as such and bath, particularly compulsory bath, is all
the difference between the blue freedom of the sky and the allotted
breathing space which is enclosed in a cage. There was something
peculiarly humiliating and servile in being forced to soap and water
three times a week under penalty of having your name read out before a
tittering schoolroom--_Absent from Bath!_ It vaguely recalled medieval
days and such abominations as the inspection of ears and the prying
intrusion of governesses!

Skippy was aware of all this and publicly voiced his indignation at the
despotic practice. To have done otherwise would have been to draw down a
storm of ridicule. There are certain traditions in school life as firmly
established as the doctrine of infant damnation in the good old days of
theology. Secretly, however, Skippy adored the first warm contact of the
tentative toes, the slow ecstasy of the mounting ripple over the sinking
body and the long, drowsy languor of complete submersion. It was the
apotheosis of happiness when all the aches and vexations of the day
disappeared in a narcotic reverie, when he could forget the scorn of the
Roman, flunking him; the jibes of Slugger Jones, the rigorous discipline
of Turkey Reiter and the base ingratitude of Dennis de Brian de Boru
Finnegan, who had refused him the price of a jigger, with pockets that
bulged with the silver he had loaned him.

"Well, I'll be jiggswiggered!"

Skippy looked up hastily to perceive the unwashed features of Slops
Barnett peering over the partition in set disapproval.

"Hello, Slops!"

[Illustration: Instantly the air was filled with flying sponges. _Page
4_]

"What are you doing that for?"

"Doing what?"

"Getting into it," said Slops in an angry whisper. "You're a nice one,
you are!"

Slops' method of rebellion, which antedated the hunger strike, was to
submit to a superior authority so far as outward appearances required.
But once safely behind a loc