“A vicker! Does he have some say?”
“Some say?”
“Yes”—impatiently—“some say. He hasn’t got to do the way the others tell him all the time, has he?”
“Oh, dear, no. Don’t you know Mr. Wright, down at the chapel? He’s called the vicar. He really manages it, I think. Of course it’s not like being the rector——”
“Chapel? Is that the only kind of vicker, like Mr. Wright?”
“Why, of course not, silly! There are lots of different kinds.”
“Oh!” and she retired, practising the word. The others were much impressed by her cleverness in discovering such a fascinating title. It savored of wicked and villain, to begin with; and pursuing the advantage of their previous ignorance of it, she invented several privileges and perquisites of the office, which to deny would argue their lack of information on the subject, a thing she knew they would never own.
One of these was the right to summon the band, when the Head Captain had decided on an expedition, to any meeting-place she saw fit; and though in a great many ways her superiors found her a nuisance, the Lieutenant in particular objecting in a nagging, useless sort of way to most of her suggestions, they could not but admit that her selection of mysterious, unsuspected rendezvous was often brilliantly original.
“Crouching along beneath the perches.”