"Well, if you meet him casually drop into French, and see how he takes it."
"Drop into French yourself," urged Joey; "you always find that so jolly easy in French conversation class."
"There! Listen to her, Gabrielle! Ever know anything so cheeky?—and I'm nearly a year older," complained Noreen.
Gabrielle was a peacemaker. "Oh, don't rag, you two. I want to think about the Professor. I wonder whether Miss Conyngham knows quite how—how cranky he is? He quite frightened a lot of the babies who were playing about near the door of the Lab, the other day, Rosie told me. He simply yelled at them, and no one ought to do that with babies. It wasn't as though they were trying to go in, or anything of that sort."
"I believe it's an evil conscience he's got," urged Noreen, with relish. "Why should he go for the babies otherwise? There's no sense in it."
"Unless it's like our war-strainy visitor and Bingo's trumpet," Joey said. "But she didn't go for him—she only asked frightfully nicely if he would mind blowing it farther off. The Professor is a pig to the kids; I've noticed it. Do you know Tiddles will never play that side of the house at all?"
"He hasn't gone and frightened poor little Tiddles, has he?" demanded Gabrielle indignantly.
"I don't know. I never asked. But she can't bear him," Joey said. "She won't come round that way, even with me."
Gabrielle ruffled up like an angry robin. "Well, that settles it. Of course, one can't go sneaking of him to Miss Conyngham when it may be war-strain, but I shall ask the Professor myself if he will mind being careful where the babies are concerned, poor little things."
Noreen and Joey gasped. "You won't? Why, he'll be furious."