"It's my job to look after things like that," Gabrielle said firmly. "It's the choice between pointing out quietly to him that babies mustn't be frightened, and telling Miss Conyngham what he's been doing—and I'm Head of the Lower. And nobody tells about unfairness and things like that at Coll; you just bear them, or alter them for yourself."
"Well, you're a sport, Gabrielle," Noreen remarked admiringly. "I wouldn't have the pluck."
"Of course I shall put it quite politely," Gabrielle told them. "Just say I am sure he would be most disturbed if he knew that he frightened the babies, and so on. I don't suppose he does it on purpose."
"I do," Noreen said stubbornly. "Don't you, Joey?"
"Haven't seen enough of him—but I do think he's a terror," Joey agreed; and then the station came in sight and they left off talking about the Professor and his ways, and talked of Miss Craigie instead.
"You'll have to buck up over your maths now, Joey," Gabrielle remarked. "She'll be so frightfully keen to see you go top, if she's a friend of yours."
"Joey is rather brainy over them," Noreen remarked kindly. "I sometimes fear she's going to turn into a swot after all."
"I'm not. I've been in quite as many rows for talking in maths class as you, anyhow," Joey retorted.
"Well, nobody talks when Miss Craigie takes maths," Gabrielle said, and Noreen agreed a trifle ruefully. "No, that's a true bill. You're a frightfully strenuous crowd in Scotland, Joey. Glad I wasn't born there."
"It's really rather funny we three should be friends," Joey remarked. "Gabrielle English, Noreen Irish, and I Scotch."