I'm sorry. You do realize, don't you, that we are practically strangers? ''Girls often employ that specious argument on a man. Only to discover later that he was a tadpole and they were a fish in the Palazeoic age. And then they look silly.

It wavered in style between the formal and the chummy, beginning 'Dear Madam', and ending 'So you see what a spot I'm in, ducky,' but it did present the facts.

Of course' said Joe, 'I quite realize that in an institution like this, you must have discipline. Please don't think me a foolish sentimentalist. If the order has gone out that the gang is to play croquet, and Number 6408, let us say, wants to play hopscotch, naturally you have to be firm. But discipline is one thing, harshness another. There is a difference between firmness and brutality.