Martha, wondering at the silence, looked round suddenly. But the Boy had that instant recovered, and was sitting gravely on the corner of the table.
"Martha, my duck," he said, "to return to the original opening of this conversation: has Jenkins ever told you what a nice little wisp of hair you have, behind your left ear?"
"Get along, sir!" retorted Martha, fairly blushing. "You're making game of me."
"Indeed, I'm not," said the Boy, seriously. "If you made it into a curl, Martha, and fastened it with an invisible pin, it would be quite too fascinating. You ask Jenkins. I say, Martha? What's a placket?"
"A placket, sir," said Martha, on her way to fetch something from a shelf near which hung the kitchen mirror; "a placket, sir, is a thing which shows when it shouldn't."
"I see," said the Boy. "Then you couldn't exactly go about in one. Martha, whose goloshes are those, sitting on the mat in the hall?"
Martha snorted. "An old woman's," she said, wrathfully.
The Boy considered this. "And does the umbrella with the waist belong to the same old woman?"
Martha nodded.
"And the Professor's cap and gown, hanging near by?"