Margaret reflected. "I should say he was a nice, manly boy!" she said, presently.
"Nice! now, Margaret! 'nice' is niminy, you know it is, and piminy too."
"The great advantage of 'brick,'" said Bell, "is that it is one word, and 'nice manly boy' is three, and doesn't mean the same thing then."
"There!" cried Peggy, in triumph. "What do you say to that, Margaret? Find one word in your old 'good English' that does express 'brick?'"
"Well—it isn't easy!" Margaret admitted. "'Trump' is the only one I can think of, and I suppose that was slang fifty years ago."
"The mother says that when a word has held its own for twenty years, it isn't slang any more," said Gertrude. "The question is—"
At this moment the sound of a horn was heard; a long, ringing blast, followed by a second and a third.
The girls sprang to their feet. "Hurrah for a swim!" cried Bell. "Come, bricks and trumps—I'll race you all to the tents!" And off they went with a flash of petticoats, leaving the chipmunk to speculate on the sudden upheavals of nature.