"Why should this lovely little shelf up there be so strong?
Are we going to perch on it, and drop down on top of the night birds after they let themselves in?
Is that the game, Hugh ?" "Not quite, Thad.

It's the tub that must balance up there!" "Tub! Great Scott! are you figuring on giving Nick and Leon their usual Saturday night bath ?" gasped the other, still groping in the dark.
"Something like that," chuckled Hugh, "only it will be _such_ a surprise to those chaps, and cold, too, ugh! as cold as ice can make it." "Go ahead and explain a lot more," Thad demanded.

"I'm beginning to get just an inkling of the game.

Whew! I believe you've been reading of the pranks the fellows play in the boarding schools, with a tub of water suspended over a door, so that when an unlucky boy opens it he is drenched to the skin." "That's about the idea," Hugh acknowledged.

"Nothing particularly brilliant or original about it, I own up, but the best we can do under the circumstances." Then he went on to explain the particulars, showing Thad how the tub could be balanced nicely, so that when a cord attached to it was jerked, it would tilt over beautifully, discharging its full contents without itself falling down.
Thad listened, and grunted.