- Mickey Daniels: Have you ever heard anything about a reform school?
- Dickie: Yeah, I've heard about it. What's it like?
- Mickey Daniels: Oh, it's terrible. A great big heavy iron ball around each ankle, and all stoop-shouldered from carrying a great big heavy sledgehammer.
- Stymie: What's the sludgehammer for?
- Mickey Daniels: They use it on the rockpile. They break great big rocks into little bitsy ones.
- Dickie: Well, why don't they run away?
- Mickey Daniels: Oh, they can't. Too many guards. And there's a big river runs all the way around it. And it's just chuck full of crocodiles.
- [he mimes a crocodile's jaws opening and closing]
- Wheezer: How 'bout Sunday?
- Mickey Daniels: Well, they give 'em a treat on Sunday. They feed 'em spinach instead of bread and water.
- Spanky: How 'bout Christmas?
- Mickey Daniels: Oh, they're swell to 'em on Christmas. Everybody gets a brand new sledgehammer.
- Joe: Hi, punks. Goin' to school, huh?
- The Gang: Yeah.
- Farina: Why don't you play fish hooky, and come fishin' with us?
- Joe: Yeah, boys. They're sure bitin'.
- Stymie: [in a mock prayer] Get thee behind me, Satan, and don't push!
- Dickie: I'd like to play hooky, but I'm afraid.
- Joe: We'll write you some excuses.
- Farina: We used to pull that on Miss Crabtree. She never knowed.
- Dickie: What do you think, Stymie?
- Stymie: Well, if you had pneumonia, it might be all right.
- Joe: I can't spell that. I'll give you a bad cold.
- Dickie: [the Gang accept Joe's offer to write them school excuses so they can go fishing] Go on, write the notes. Make mine a nervous breakdown. And you better put in a broken arm, to make it fancy.
- The Note: [later, when Miss Kornman gets the note, it reads:] Deer teecher: pleese ekuse Dickie, he is sick and he broke his arm to make it fancy. Mrs. Moore.