“Do this sum, Poppet,” she said, setting a multiplication with eight figures in each line—“
dear, what a greasy slate; and Peter, if you drop any blots on your copy, you will have to write it again this afternoon.”
Peter was sucking a little lump of ice he had stolen out of the ice-chest. Poppet asked him for a bit to clean her slate with, but he considered this such waste of precious material that he swallowed it in a hurry and choked. Poppet asked if she might [46] ]go and wet her sponge; but Meg said no, it always took a quarter of an hour to do that simple act, if she escaped from the room. So Peter offered to breathe on it for her.
“Both of us will,” said Poppet,—“you on the top half, and me on the bottom.”
Meg was taking a cursory glance at “Filippo,” and groaning mentally; she did not hear the arrangement for the slate-cleaning until the heads bumped violently and the two began to quarrel.
“You licked it with your tongue,” Poppet said.
“I never—I wath only breathing with my lipth on it,” declared Peter.
“I saw the end of your tongue hanging out,” Poppet maintained.
“You’re a thtory-teller, Poppet.” Peter’s face began to get red. “I wath only breathing, tho there.”
“Peter, go and sit at the other end of the table. Poppet, if you put out your tongue at Peter again, I shall make you stand in the corner.” Meg put a pen in the Browning to keep it open, and went over to Nell at the window to see how “Le Chien du Capitaine” was progressing.