"You all seem happy," he said; "a fine lot of Chessy Cats. You know Chessy Cats are remarkable for their wide grins. But as I have a prize for the side that shows most grin, I have to be careful of my decision. Miss Hart, if you will help me, I think we'll have to find out exactly which row of Chessy Cats grins the widest."
Miss Hart, smiling like a Chessy Cat herself, came forward with a lot of short strips of white paper in her hand. She gave half of these to Mr. Maynard, and then the fun began.
They actually measured each child's grin, marking on the paper with a pencil the exact length of each mouth from corner to corner as it was stretched in a smile. Of course a fresh paper was used for each, and wide indeed was the grin when the grinner realized the absurdity of having his smile measured!
Then, of course, each tried to grin his very widest, for the success of his line and the glory of his captain. Delight's little rosebud mouth couldn't make a very wide grin, but she stretched it as wide as possible, showing her pretty white teeth, and held it motionless while it was measured.
It was astonishing how wide some of them could stretch their smiling mouths, and how absurd they looked while standing stock still to be measured. Their ridiculous grimaces caused shouts of laughter from the Chessy Cats who were not being measured at the moment.
"Midget! she's the one that counts!" cried King. "She's got a smile like an earthquake! Flossy Flouncy, here, she won't count half as much!"
Marjorie only laughed at King's comment, and spread her rosy lips in a desperate effort to beat the record.
At last all were measured, and taking a pair of scissors, Miss Hart clipped the ends off the papers where the mark was, and thus each paper represented the exact width of a smile.
The papers of each side were then placed end to end, and the whole length measured. The result was fifty-four inches of smile for Flip's side, and fifty-two for Gladys'.
"Hooray, Mopsy!" cried King. "I knew your mouth was two inches bigger than Delight's!"