"Can't think why Miss Conyngham doesn't have somebody younger," Syb chimed in. "No one else is really old at the Coll. I bet Maddy's sixty if she's a day."
"More," Barbara suggested. "Look at her wrinkles. She ought to be pensioned off or something; I should think she jolly well deserves it—she's been here more than twenty years someone told me."
"Is she nice?" asked Joey, thinking anxiously of irregular verbs and elusive idioms.
"Nice!—you wait till you go a howler in form!"
"Having me on?" demanded Joey, with instant suspicion.
"No, you stupid; can't you see when we're talking sense?" Noreen said. "I ought to know; I'm always in her black books. She simply can't bear me."
"Says Noreen doesn't think or something," Syb contributed.
"As if anyone could be bothered to think right through a stuffy French conversation class."
"What?" shrieked Joey. "It isn't French conversation, is it?"