“Well, you won’t believe me.”
“We will! We will! Hear! Hear!” shouted Betta, whose full appellation was none other than Betta-be-good, given because she had a habit of lecturing.
“She did see a real prince,” chimed in Doro. “And he did wear buckles and laces and everything.”
“Where, oh where, fair maid? Lead me thither and hither and yon,” moaned Pell Mell. “Next to a movie star I love a prince best,” she finished dramatically, although it was common knowledge that Pell loved nothing so well as rushing about and falling over adventures. She actually fell over the Ridge, that is as far down as the big flat rock, before her chums decided she was hereafter to be known as Pell Mell.
“That is all there is to tell,” announced Alma, in a tone tinctured with finality. She knew perfectly well the girls would never rest until they had sought out the darling prince, and she also knew it would be lots of fun to make them “sit up and beg” for the details they had been scoffing at.
“Where, Alma?”
“Near the bend, Alma?”
“Wasn’t it over by the Nest, Al?”
“She said she saw him over by the Ledge.”
All this and much more was thrown out as bait, but in the parlance of the tribe, Alma did not “bite,” she merely picked up a discarded book and proceeded to read.