'Couldn't guess, dear.'
'Mr Biff—my father, I mean—wants me to pose as mermaid next week, and he seems very determined. I wish he would tell me to go away and get work at some other show.'
'He won't do that, Lotty. But I'll see him for you, and let him know there will be a general strike if he attempts to make you mermaid. But it would not be for a fortnight anyhow.'
'A fortnight!' Lotty's spirits began to rise. She hoped to be far enough away before then. And now she was smiling as she said, 'Mary, couldn't you tell him that you would be happy to be the mermaid?'
'Me a mermaid, wearing a very low-bodiced dress, as I'm told mermaids do! Me a mermaid, Lotty, with my fragile, fairy-like form, twenty stone and over. Ha, ha, ha!'
And good Mary laughed till the cups and saucers rang in the caravan cupboard.
But Lotty grew a little serious again.
'Mary,' she said, 'I am going to be debarred from ever going to see my fairy godmother any more. What shall I do?'
Mary put one fat arm round Lotty's waist and drew her nearer.
'I cannot ask you to disobey your father,' she said; 'but in this case, I myself, with Skeleton, shall waddle over to Crona's to-night, and Crona will write through me to the boss, and I think this will alter matters very much, so that you and Chops can go to the cottage as often as you have a mind to.'