“5. It is a jolly nice one.
“6. I have reason to believe it is empty. I’m going to fill it out of Fauvette’s bottle.”
“Cheek!” returned Fauvette, allowing her friend to help herself to the Swan ink, however. “What puzzles me, is how you managed to buy it.”
“Your little head, Baby, is easily puzzled,” 268 smiled Raymonde serenely. “It’s meant to wear fluffy curls, and not to engage itself in abstruse problems. I don’t advise you to worry yourself over this, unless you can turn it to some account. If the Hornet should ask you for an original example, you might begin: ‘Let A represent a fountain pen, and B my schoolmate, C standing for an unknown quantity––’”
Fauvette, at this point, placed her hand over her chum’s mouth.
“Stop it!” she begged beseechingly. “If I get any of those wretched A B and C questions I’ll collapse, and disgrace the Form. I’ve many weak points, but mathematics are absolutely my weakest of all. If you frighten me any more, I shan’t have the courage to walk into the exam. room. Do I look presentable? Are my hands clean? And is my hair decent?”
“You look so much more than presentable that anybody but a hardened brute of an examiner would be bowled over by you utterly and entirely.”
“I’m sure he hasn’t any feelings, so it’s no use trying to work upon them,” said Fauvette plaintively.
“Joking apart, Ray, where did you get that fountain pen?” asked Morvyth.
Raymonde’s eyes twinkled.