Tom's exuberance of spirits settled down promptly into discreet behaviour, and Miss Clark had time to look round the table.
"Johnnie, you are forbidden to eat jam for a week," she burst out. "Minnie, take his plate away."
"It's a shame poor Johnnie isn't to have any jam," Minnie began whining--"all for nothing, too. It's a real downright shame, it is," and forthwith she took the opportunity of daubing a thick slice of bread-and-butter with jam off her own plate, and smuggling it into the luckless Johnnie's hand in such a way that he might eat it upside down, to the intense delight of Tom opposite, who had seen the little manoeuvre, and was bursting to disclose it.
For once nodding and winking had no effect, for nobody happened to be looking at him. So Tom, in despair lest such an amusing incident should be altogether lost, began vigorously nudging Flossie, who sat next to him, with his elbow. Flossie, unfortunately, was in the act of raising a large cup of very hot tea to her lips, and Tom's nudge causing the hot cup to touch her knuckle, made her jerk violently, and over the tea went in a deluge on to her lap.
It is almost impossible to give an adequate description of the scene which followed. Flossie shrieked and screamed as if she was being murdered by a slow process; Tom vowed and protested that it was not his fault; Janey had pushed him over against Flossie; Janey appealed to Miss Clark to remember that at the very moment she was handing her cup in the opposite direction; and Miss Clark began to wring her hands and exclaim that she would ask to have Tom sent back to school again, for stand his cruel and unbrotherly behaviour she neither could nor would. And in the midst of it all, young Johnnie seized the opportunity of helping Minnie freely to jam and eating off her plate, as if he were eating for a wager.
Sarah sat looking, as she was, scared; and May calmly surveyed the scene of uproar with disdainful face.
"Disgusting boy!" she said to the still protesting Tom. "You get more vulgar every day. Don't take any notice, Sarah; you will get used to it by-and-by."
Eventually Miss Clark began to cry weakly.
"It's too much for me; how am I to bear four weeks more of this dreadful boy?" she sobbed.
"Do like me, take no notice," suggested May.