“Yes,” Tod replied firmly, “he jolly well must, and, what’s more, he’s got to be going to Injia just as term begins. We’ll look out the sailings in uncle’s paper and choose his ship. He’ll just get there in the hot weather, but that can’t be helped.”
The twins were well acquainted with the whereabouts of “sailings” in the papers, as most Anglo-Indian children are.
“Why, you’ve planned it all, Tod,” Peter said admiringly. “How’ll you do about the writing?”
“I shall write as like old Stinks as possible, that niggly, scrabbly sort of writing, you know.”
“By Jove! So you can—that’ll be all right. Parents and people call that sort of writing ‘scholarly,’ but if we did it they’d say we were beastly illiterate or something.”
“What I like about a scholarly handwriting,” said Tod thoughtfully, “is that no mortal can tell whether the spelling’s right or not. When I’m once through the Shop I shall always write a scholarly hand and not bother about spelling and that any more.”
“Boys,” a voice called from the next room, “you get to bed and don’t keep jawing all night.”
It would not be fair to disclose the exact spot in Wales from which that anxious relative, Mr. T. Jones, indited his first letter to the headmaster of the Public School which reckoned Tod and Peter among its pupils.
“There are several L’s in the place where he dwells,