“Not if she can speak,” said Kathleen. “I say, don’t you think we ought to wear our best things—I do. It’s more respectable to the wonders of the deep. She’d like us to look beautiful.”
“I’m not going to change for anybody,” said Bernard firmly.
“All right, Bear,” said Mavis. “Only we will. Remember it’s magic.”
“I say, France,” he said, “do you think we ought to change?”
“No, I don’t,” Francis answered. “I don’t believe Mermaids care a bit what you’ve got on. You see, they don’t wear anything but tails and hair and looking glasses themselves. If there’s any beautifulness to be done they jolly well do it themselves. But I don’t say you wouldn’t be better for washing your hands again, and you might as well try to get some of the sand out of your hair. It looks like the wrong end of a broom as it is.”
He himself went so far as to put on the blue necktie that Aunt Amy had given him, and polished his silver watch chain on the inside of his jacket. This helped to pass the time till the girls were ready. At last this happened though they had put on their best things, and they started.
The yellowhammer went on about himself—he was never tired of the subject.
“It’s just as if that bird was making fun of us,” Bernard said.
“I daresay it is a wild-goose step we’re taking,” said Kathleen; “but the circus will be jolly, anyhow.”