“Oh, there is, William,” said Joan. “We’ve been learning it at school. Someone called Shakespeare wrote it. You keep saying to both of them that the other’s in love with them and they fall in love and marry. I know. We did it last term. One of them was Beatrice and I forget the other.”
“You said it was Shakespeare,” said William.
“No, he’s the one that tells about it.”
“Sounds a queer sort of tale to me,” said William severely. “Couldn’t you write to him and get it a bit plainer what to do?”
“Write to him!” jeered Ginger. “He’s dead. Fancy you not knowin’ that! Fancy you not knowin’ Shakespeare’s dead!”
“Well, how was I to know he was dead? I can’t know everyone’s name what’s dead, can I? I bet there’s lots of dead folks’ names what you don’ know!”
“Oh, do you?” said Ginger. “Well, I bet I know more dead folks’ names than you do!”
“He said that anyway,” interposed Joan hastily and pacifically. “He said that if you keep on making up nice things and saying that the other said it about them they fall in love and marry. It must be true because it’s in a book.”
There was a look of set purpose in William’s eyes.
“It’ll take a bit of arrangin’,” was the final result of his frowning meditation, “but it might come off all right.”