ription, adding:

FIELD LIMITED

_Suggestion--Hold until later date and patent
anonymously._

Skippy then reluctantly admitted the destructive force of Snorky Green's
criticism of the Souvenir Toothbrush; he admitted it, but he could not
forgive him for being right. There are certain things which one does not
forgive a brother, a sister, or the chum of chums.

After all, was Snorky Green worthy of that privileged and exalted
position? A disturbing doubt began to creep into Skippy's imagination.
He passed over the treachery in the matter of the now defunct Bedelle
Foot Regulator; that might conceivably have been the fault of an
inferior temperament. It was the spirit of negative criticism, the
settled habit of turning into raillery the fragile first impulses of his
inventive imagination, that was alarming.

"Gee! If every time I get a big idea, he's going to knock it in the
head, what's the use of having an imagination?" he said gloomily.

After all, could a creative temperament yoke itself to a destructive
criticism without self-immolation? Immersed in these brooding
forebodings, he came heavily up the Dickinson stairs to the communal
room. Suddenly he stopped, amazed.

"What the deuce!"

On his bureau a flaming bit of color greeted him from the somber mass of
his pendent neckties. He advanced and recognized Snorky Green's red
choker tie, which was particularly dear to his young sartorial fancy. On
the pin cushion lay the agate cuff buttons and the silver-rimmed
fountain pen. He opened the top drawer and beheld three pair of
open-work socks, red, orange and glowing green.

"Gee, how crude!" he said indignantly.

At another moment and in another mood his heart might have softened at
this evident peace-offering; but this afternoon, with the new child of
his imagination slain by Snorky Green's brutal wit, the whole proceeding
was undeniably crude, a bribe too openly offered. He would have to
return them; that was inevitable and that was of course the last thing
he wished to do. He sat down at his desk, scowling horribly, and then,
moved by a fitting inspiration, he seized his pen and dashed off the
most frigid and properly insulting of notes.

To Arthur E. Green. Goods Returned.
1 Fountain Pen.
1 Pair of Agate Cuff Buttons.
1 Choker Tie (red).
3 Pair of Socks.
Kindly acknowledge rece