Little AtD wisdom, lest we get too secular

[Smoke Teff]

The figurehead debate, at first no deeper than varying decorative tastes
might account for, had grown bitter and complex, swiftly reaching an
intensity that astonished them all. Old injuries 'kicked up,' pretexts were
found to exchange shoves and, not infrequently, blows.

[...]

After a while the boys would come to think of the episode as others might
remember a time of illness, or youthful folly. As Lindsay Noseworth was
there to remind them all, such difficulties always arose for good
reason--namely, to provide cautionary lessons.

'Like what,' sneered Darby, '"be nice"?'

'We were always supposed--by whom it is less clear--to be above such
behavior,' asserted the 'X.O.' somberly. 'Literally above. That sort of
bickering may be for ground people, but it is not for us.'

'Oh, I don't know, I kind of enjoyed it,' said Darby.

'Despite which, we must ever strive to minimize contamination by the
secular,' declared Lindsay.

Each of the boys in his way agreed. 'We have had a narrow escape, fellows,'
said Randolph St. Cosmo.

'Let us develop protocols,' added Chick Counterfly, 'to avoid its happening
again.'
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