"I believe we were fearfully narrow before, only we didn't know it," said Bess Harrison. "When the Alliance was first suggested, I'm sure we all thought it would be just an easy walk-over for St. Cyprian's in everything."
"We jolly soon found out our mistake!" murmured Kitty Fletcher, who was still smarting over a hockey match in which Newington Green had triumphed. "The Coll. has to look after herself, or take a back seat."
"Somehow it seems uncommonly tame without the others to spur us on," admitted Maudie Stearne.
"Isn't there anything we could do just to liven ourselves up till all these microbes have taken their departure, and we're once more labelled 'safe to meet'? Something, if possible, that the other schools won't have thought of, so that we can surprise them after Easter?"
"Well, of course if you're prepared to go in for prize-fighting or fortune-telling, or the making of artificial wax flowers, you might find an untrodden path, but I think most things have been pretty well exploited already."
"It must be lovely to go out as a missionary to the Cannibal Islands!" sighed Sheila Moore. "Just think of finding people who've never heard, say, of the Tango, and being able to show them how!"
"They'd soon tango you into their biggest fish kettle, you goose, and dance their original war steps while digesting you! A nice appetizing little morsel you'd be, I expect! Just like tender roast pork!"
"Pig yourself!" retorted Sheila.
"All the same, to go back to my original plaint," urged Bess, "we're pretty well kept within the bounds of our own Coll. this term, so why not do something on our own—something unique?"
"And I return to my original reply, that there isn't a solitary art or handicraft left unappropriated by the other schools," grunted Maudie.