"Gee, if we obeyed all orders with as good grace as we obey the Little Mother's what models we'd be," was Jean Paul's jerky comment as he struggled into an overcoat, his eyes still fixed upon Rosalie's winsome face.
Meanwhile, Doug Porter was clawing about among the coats to find his own, but happening to glance at Jean Paul, shouted:
"Well, I'll be hanged! Say, how is it to get out of my coat, Bantam?"
True enough, the garment into which the wee man was wriggling trailed upon the carpet, but Jean Paul was in a realm where overcoats 'never were or e'er had been.'
At six-fifteen the lingering good-byes had been said and Mrs. Harold had dismissed those who constituted the "firing line," the name having been bestowed by Wheedles when he first witnessed the promptitude with which Mrs. Harold sent her boys to the right-about in order to avoid demerits for tardiness.
"Why must they rush back on the very minute?" asked Rosalie, when all were gone, half inclined to resent an order of things which deprived her of her gallant Jean sans ceremony.
"Discipline! Discipline! Little lady," laughed Mrs. Harold, coming up behind Rosalie and turning the piquant face up to hers.
"I should think they'd feel like a lot of school boys to be ordered about so," was Juno's rather petulant comment.
"Better feel 'like a lot of schoolboys' here, than like a lot of simpletons when they 'hit the tree,'" was Mrs. Harold's merry reply. "You've a whole lot to learn about regulations, my bonny lassie."
It was all said so kindly and so merrily that Juno could not resent it.