“Piffle?” suggested David.
“Yes. What piffle you would have thought the Keats Ode only a few months ago, and at that time you thought it grand and grown-up to smoke.”
David sat down again, thoroughly interested in his own metamorphosis.
“Yes, that’s rum,” he said.
“No, not really. It’s just growing up.”
“It sounds sort of philosophical,” said he.
Margery picked up two or three fallen mulberries, and put them into her mouth absently, one after the other.
“I dare say,” she said. “Oh, David, do be quick about changing your skin, and let me see the new one. And now let’s go and do something. I vote we go and look at that old bookstall by the Priory Gate. We might find a Keats among the cheap lots in the tray. You asked me to come and look for one this morning.”
She held out her hands to her brother, and he pulled her up.
“Right oh!” he said. “I say, Margery, you’re not a bad sort.”