While he was still romping with the children she called him in.
"I must remind you," she said, with a slight nervous asperity, "that this outrageous conduct of Tom Hardee was evidently deliberated and prepared by the others, and cannot end in this way." He looked at her with a face so exasperatingly expressionless that she could have slapped it as if it had belonged to one of the older scholars, and said,--"But it HAS ended.

It's a dead frost." "I don't know what you mean; and I must remind you also that in this school we neither teach nor learn slang." His immobile face changed for an instant to a look of such decided admiration that she felt her color rise; but he wiped his expression away with his hand as if it had been some artificial make-up, and said awkwardly, but earnestly:-- "Excuse me--won't you?
But, look here, Mrs.Martin, I found out early this morning, when I was squaring myself with the other children, that there was this row hangin' on--in fact, that there was a sort of idea that Pike County wasn't having a fair show--excuse me--in the running of the school, and that Peaseley and Barstow were a little too much on in every scene.

In fact, you see, it was just what Tom said." "This is insufferable," said Mrs.Martin, her eyes growing darker as her cheeks grew red.

"They shall go home to their parents, and tell them from me"-- "That they're all mistaken--excuse me--but that's just what THEY'RE GOIN' TO DO.

I tell you, Mrs.Martin, their little game's busted--I beg pardon--but it's all over.