At the end of the corridor just outside their door a narrow stairway led to the north tower rooms on the floor above. Beatrice Leigh and Lila Allan and a number of their liveliest friends lived up there on the fifth, with Berta Abbott at the foot of the stairs near Robbie's place of abode.
Just as Robbie's usually serene brow was puckering its hardest over the sequence of tenses, a door banged open in the tower and the stairs creaked under swift clatter of feet--a dozen at the very least.
Miss Cutter scowled beneath the green shade; Robbie Belle could tell that from the way the fringe of upright hair vibrated.
"Savages!" she muttered, "they'll tear the building to pieces. No wonder the newspapers report that the college girl's favorite mode of locomotion is sliding down the banisters."
"No," said Robbie Belle, "not that. They take hold of the railing and jump several steps at a time. I've seen them. Miss Leigh says she does it for exercise."
"And this also is exercise!" Miss Cutter clutched her ears as a tornado swept past their threshold.
Robbie bent to listen anxiously. "They're going to the ice-cooler," she said, "pretty soon they will go back again."
"Yes," said Miss Cutter as she rose and moved toward the door, "they will doubtless go back, and doubtless also they shall go in a different manner."
Then she went out and remonstrated briefly but to the point. Whereupon the culprits apologized with noble profusion and tiptoed their way to the stairs. This would have been an admirable proof of repentance if their heels had not persisted in coming down on the bare boards in very loud clicks at very short intervals. And every click was greeted by a reproving chorus of "Sh-sh-sh!"
The instant they reached the hall above, pandemonium broke loose. To judge from the sounds, they were playing blindman's buff with scampering of heavy shoes, scraping of chairs, banging against walls, flopping on mattresses. Even reluctant Robbie Belle looked upward in fear that the ceiling might fall. When a deputation of wild eyed sophomores from an adjacent study arrived to protest against a continuation of the outrage, the shrinking corridor-warden had no loophole for escape from her duty. Outwardly calm, inwardly quivering, she mounted the stairs to expostulate on behalf of the Students' Association for Self-Government.