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118 it will be a whacking with staves for thine. Dost thou agree?"

"Speak on what?"

"Here is the subject," said Dave, in a disguised voice that was thin and piping: 'If a Pail Lets Out Water When it Leaks, Why Doesn't a Boat Do the Same Thing? And a snicker went round at this question.

"Thou hast heard the subject. Art prepared to discourse?" asked one of the Gee Eyes.

"Sure thing," answered Gus Plum, after a moment of thought. He struck an attitude. "My subject is a most profound one, first broached by Cicero to Henry Clay, during the first trip of the beloved pair to Coney Island."

"Hurrah! Hooroo!" came from one of the club members.

"Cicero had been speaking to just such a crowd of convicts as I am now addressing—thieves, murderers, and those who had failed to shovel the snow from their sidewalks during the months of July and August," continued Gus Plum.

"Convicts is good," murmured Roger.

"The boat running to Coney Island had slowed up to a walk, which caused Cicero to grow impatient, as he wanted a ride on the shoot-the-chutes. Henry Clay, along with Napoleon and a Roman sausage-maker named Hannibal, were in the bow of the craft trying to solve the fifteen puzzle by the