Part 2 (2/2)

”Not bewwy much, I don't fink,” said Pipette; ”this handle thing's still pretty full.”

”But the basin's nearly empty,” said Pip. ”The stuff must have gone somewhere.”

”Some of it has gone on the floor,” said Pipette truthfully.

At this moment the clock struck one.

”Father will be in soon,” said Pip. ”We'd better wipe up.”

They propped the telephone receiver on the little table between the directory and a bookstand, and cleared up the mess on the floor with a handkerchief--Pipette's. As they finished they heard the brougham drive up.

”It isn't nearly all gone,” said Pip gloomily, peering into the receiver. ”If we hang it up on its hook the stuff will all fall out.

Let's leave it like it is. Father doesn't never use the Terriphone till after lunch, and it will be all gone by then. Come on, Pipette.”

The two Samaritans turned their backs upon the telephone and stole out of the room, leaving that sorely tried instrument to digest its unaccustomed luncheon as best it might.

It was Mr. Evans who suffered most. He was sent into the Consulting Room just before dinner to telephone a message to a patient. The telephone stood in a dark corner, and the gas in the room was turned low. Mr.

Evans was surprised to find that the receiver, instead of hanging on its hook, was lying on the little table, carefully propped between the directory and a bookstand.

On lifting it up he was surprised by an unwonted feeling of stickiness; but when he held the instrument to the light, the reason revealed itself to him immediately in the form of a dollop of congealed chicken-broth, nicely rounded to the shape of the cup, which shot from its resting-place, with a clammy thud, on to his clean s.h.i.+rtfront, and then proceeded to slide rapidly down inside his dress waistcoat, leaving a snail-like track, dotted with grains of rice, behind it.

Pip was sent supperless to bed, where Pipette, completely broken down by remorse and sisterly affection, voluntarily joined him not much later.

The following week they were sent to school.

CHAPTER II

MR. POCKLINGTON'S

SO Pip and Pipette went to school, and life in its entirety lay at their feet.

Hitherto the social circle in which they moved had been limited on the male side to Father, Mr. Evans, and Mr. Pipes, together with the milkman, the lamplighter, and a few more nodding acquaintances; and on the female to Tattie Fowler, Cook, and a long line of housemaids. The children could neither read nor write; the fact that they possessed immortal souls was practically unrevealed to them; and their religious exercises were limited to a single stereotyped prayer, imparted by Cook, and perfunctorily delivered night and morning by the children, at the bidding of the housemaid in charge, to a mysterious Power whose sole function, so far as they could gather, was to keep an eye upon them during their attendant's frequent nights-out, and to report delinquencies (by some occult means) on her return.

Of the ordinary usages of polite society they knew little or nothing. To Pip and Pipette etiquette and deportment were summed up in the following nursery laws, as amended by the Kitchen:--

I. Girls, owing to some mysterious infirmity which is never apparent, and for which they are not responsible, must be helped first to everything.

II. A boy must on no account punch a girl, even though she is older and bigger than himself. (For reason, see I.)

III. A girl must not scratch a boy. Not that the boy matters, but it is unladylike.

IV. Real men do not play with dolls. (However, you may pretend to be a doctor, and administer medicine, without loss of dignity.)

V. Real ladies do not climb the trees in the garden in the Square. (But you can get over this difficulty by pretending to be a boy or a monkey for half an hour.)

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