T hat you'd think her cheeks were cherries.
T hough we often call her 'Fatty',
Y ou depend we're nuts on Chatty."
"What a shame!" cried the indignant original of the acrostic. "My hair's auburn, it's not the colour of a kipper!"
"We certainly call you 'Fatty', though," laughed Lettice. "I think the poem is lovely!"
"It's a good thing you tore it up, all the same," said Ruth. "Vivian would have been simply horrified. We have a crusade against slang at Chessington, and 'ripper' is one of the words absolutely vetoed. We only say 'jolly' by stealth."
"I'm sure 'jolly' ought to be allowable. I saw it in a book in the library: 'as jolly as a sandboy', was the expression."
"What is a sandboy?" asked Lettice. "The phrase is always quoted as the high-water mark of bliss."
"I've never been able to find out," said Ruth. "I suppose it's either one of those wretched little urchins who dive for pennies, or an ordinary donkey boy. But this is what Miss Farrar calls 'a digression from the subject'. I want to hear if Honor has written any more acrostics."
"I made one on Lillie Harper," replied Honor. "It had an illustration, too, done very badly, in just a few crooked strokes, like little children draw: