"Rather!"
"Audrey, choose another scrap of paper, and see who's next on the list."
It proved to be Patsie, and her contribution was a collection of parodied proverbs. She called them:
MORAL MAXIMS FOR YOUTHFUL MINDS
Take care of the shrimps, and the lobsters will boil themselves.
Haste not pant not.
A cockroach saved is a cockroach gained.
A mouse in the hand is worth two in the hole.
Treacle by any other name would taste as sweet
Catch moths while the moon shines.
All is not mirth that titters.
A squashed slug dreads the spade.
It's the last sob that breaks the camel's heart.
"And if a child won't learn his maxim,
The teacher promptly takes and smacks 'im!"
Vivien, who was fond of rhymes, had cudgelled her brains for Limericks, and produced the following:
NELLIE APPLEBY
There was once a schoolgirl named Nell,
Who fancied herself quite a swell;
With her head in the air
And her frizzled-up hair,
She reckoned she looked just a belle.
PATSIE SULLIVAN