"No, they'd smell a rat."
"I want my tea," said Annie. "Oh, cock-a-doodle-doo! There's the first bell! Hip-hip-hooray! I say, you six, if you don't want to give Miss Birks a first-class fit, you'd best be toddling to the bath-room, and applying the soap-and-water treatment to your interesting countenances."
CHAPTER VII
An Invitation
"Zickery, dickery, lumby tum,
Tip me the wink, and out I'll come,
Leave my pagoda so glum, glum, glum,
To drink green tea with my own Yum-Yum!"
So chanted Evie Bennett on the following Monday, bursting into Vb room with a face betokening news, and a manner suggestive of Bedlam.
"What's the matter, you lunatic? Look here, if you go on like a dancing dervish we shall have to provide you with a padded room! Mind the inkpot! Oh, I say, you'll have the black-board over! Hasn't anybody got a strait-waistcoat? Evie's gone sheer, stark, raving mad!"
"I've got news, my hearty! News! news! news!
'What will you take for my news?
I know it will make you enthuse!
There isn't a girl who'll refuse,
Or offer to make an excuse.'
Ahem! A poor thing, but mine own. I'm waxing so poetical, I think I must be inspired."