“They’re great!” agreed Rex, similarly employed. “D’you know, I used to hate girls!”
“Don’t you now?”
“Not like I used to, since I knew Jean and Jo. They’ve made me think better of girls!” said the philosopher of nine. “The sort I used to see at home were awful! They were all pretty old—about seventeen or eighteen—and they used to put powder on their noses. And some of ’em wanted to kiss me. Now that’s a thing Jean and Jo have never done!”
“I s’pecs they don’t think you’d be up to much to kiss,” said Billy, grinning. “I don’t, either!”
“Nobody wants you to, smarty!” returned Master Forester. “I was awfully afraid they would, though. But they’re so jolly and so sensible. They really don’t seem to me like girls at all!”
“Well, they’ve really got as much sense as if they were boys,” Billy agreed. “I thought I’d be able to do as I jolly well liked when I heard they were going to teach me. But——” he paused, with a grin.
“But you don’t, do you?”
“Not much!” said Billy. “And all the same, they never get exactly wild. I don’t know how it is. They’ve got a queer way of just expecting you to be decent, and so it just happens.”
“Yes, and they’re never bossy,” Rex remarked. “Old Miss Green, now—she just was bossy. She used to finish up everything with, ‘Now, Rex, obey me instantly!’ ” He imitated Miss Green’s high falsetto squeak.
“And so you never did, I suppose?”