Clara took a firm lead. She proposed at once that Emma Binns should not make beds. When the time came, she was to be led away to some remote spot while the Penguins made hers and did her share of the chores. Clara explained that bed making was the sort of thing that poor Emma probably had to do at home. It wasn't a treat. And maybe she was underfed. She didn't look very strong. It was their duty, belonging as they did to the Privileged Classes, to make Sacrifices.
It was a simple supper, nourishing but Spartan. When Pip-Emma, seated at the Penguin table, thought of the Pineapple Temptation Ma might be eating at that very moment, her gloom deepened. But she wasn't going to cry again. Not if she had to bite her tongue out. She'd never cried like that before in her life.
The Penguins suddenly burst into song:
"We are the happy Penguins—
We play without a care;
We don't worry who wins the game,
So long as we play fair!"
At that moment every Penguin was stricken by the same thought. The memory of their unpaid gambling debts rose in their midst like a reproachful specter. Their song wavered and sank to silence.
From her point of vantage at the Pelican table Miss Thornton viewed them anxiously. "The Penguins seem depressed," she said. "Is anything the matter?"
"I guess it's their Social Conscience," Prissy Adams said grimly, "getting the better of them."
After taps Clara VanSittart laid a packet on Emma's cot. She had no business to be talking at all. And it was almost another speech.
"We feel," she concluded, "that Prissy didn't understand."
In tense silence Emma undid the parcel. It contained her legitimate winnings. She didn't want their darned old beads, but she wrapped the things up again and slipped them under her pillow. "O.K.," she said.