'I declare,' cried Gertrude, 'I've got the very man for the bad owl. How lucky I brought my photograph book!' She flew back to her room, and returned in a moment with her album. 'I brought it to show Geraldine our New Zealand children, and Leonard's pupils,' she said; 'but just look here. Transplant him, Cherry!'
The photograph represented a handsome, complacent looking, gentleman-like man, with certainly large eyes and an aquiline nose, and bushy beard, but nothing else owl-like about him.
'Who is he? What has he done?' asked Cherry.
'Done! He's a school inspector! Don't you have inspections here? Not under Government? O thrice happy people! If ever you do wish to see my dearly beloved sister Ethel in the position of a toad under a harrow!'
'But why, you have got her harrow in your book?'
'He isn't our proper district harrow,' said Gertrude. 'He's badderer and wusserer nor that! He's my sister Mary's brother-in-law, and Tom's bosom friend!'
'Worse and worse!' said Cherry, laughing.
'Exactly, for he comes down for Sundays! He is the youngest of the Cheviots by a good many years, born after they had got prosperous, and cockered up beyond all measure—went and got everything a man could go in for at Oxford—horrid fellow—and then turned school inspector, and writes smart articles in Harvey Anderson's Magazine.'
'Rupert Cheviot; I know the fellow's style,' said Lance; 'but may I ask why he is in your book?'
'Because Mary gave me the book, and stuck him in so fast there's no eradicating him; but I shall paste him over before long. Luckily, he generally talks to Ethel. They are always fighting, and I believe she likes him; and he doesn't know what to make of such a clever woman being so narrow, you see.—Now, an' you love me, Cherry, put him up there—an owl, inspecting the Academy!'