"Go on, Zee. I don't get you, yet."
"The teachers' wraps were in the cloak-room. So I got Miss Hodges' hat and put it on the skeleton, and it looked so comical you would have laughed." A sad reminiscent smile flashed over the subdued but always impish features. "So I put her coat on too—it almost made me shiver to touch the thing, though Professor says it is very scientific, and he disinfected it with something when they got it. And I bent up its arm, and stuck her gloves in its fingers, and put her bag over the arm, and it looked for all the world like Miss Hodges in a grouch, and she is grouchy most of the time."
"Yes?"
"But I did not hear the recitation bell ring, and the door opened and in came the physical geography class and Miss Hodges. She was not at all pleased. So she invited father to come and talk me over with her."
"All right, I will go," said Mr. Artman quietly.
Zee sighed heavily. "I hope you understand, father, that I know it was a perfectly repre—repre—"
"—hensible," prompted Treasure softly.
"Yes, reprehensible thing to do, and I am fearfully ashamed of it. And it makes me sick to think I had to bother you when you are busy. But Miss Hodges need not have been so huffy about it. She's got a little more flesh, but her disposition isn't half as good as a skeleton's."
"Zee, you must not speak disrespectfully and flippantly of your teachers. It is not right, and it is not kind. If Miss Hodges has a room full of children as full of mischief as you are, it is no wonder she is sometimes impatient and nervous."
Zee subsided.