"'Very short hair!'" she muttered to Sally. "Maybe it is; but it can grow, I guess; anyway, it's no disgrace. But as for his curls, hair like that is a disgrace to any man."
"Yes, indeed," assented Sally; "his curls are only fit for a girl. They'd look nice, now, on you, Pickle."
Pickle replied to this apparently innocent speech with a withering glance. The next moment, however, her face lighted up with an idea.
The door of the class-room opened, and Miss Meek entered to say that some new German books had arrived, and to request Herr Müller to come and look at them. No sooner had the door closed behind the two teachers than Pickle exclaimed aloud, "I've forgotten my translation book," and also left the room. Sally was suspicious of this errand. Pickle often forgot her books, yet seldom took the trouble to go for them, unless sent. But when she came into the class-room again, with several others who had also seized this opportunity of walking out, she seemed hardly to merit her friend's suspicions. She paused a moment by the teacher's desk, and then took her seat.
In a few minutes Herr Müller's step outside caused all the girls to scramble to their seats, so that when he entered they sat as quiet and demure as though they had not stirred during his absence. He took his seat, and opened his book again at the lesson, when the girls saw him suddenly flush up to the roots of his hair, and run his fingers nervously through his long curls. He next removed a small package that had evidently been lying in his book, and laid it on the side of the desk. In so doing, something fell out of the package on to the floor, and showed itself to the wondering girls to be a hair-pin. Thereupon some of the girls giggled, others smiled, and all involuntarily fastened their gaze on the teacher's flowing hair.
Sally turned to Pickle. "How could you do it?" she whispered to her companion, whose face, flushed with the effort to restrain her mirth, was alarmingly red.
"What do you mean?" returned Pickle, with an unconscious air.
The next minute Miss Meek again entered, this time with an inkstand for the teacher's desk. In placing it she evidently saw the bundle of hair-pins, for she looked indignantly around the class before leaving the room, while Herr Müller once more flushed a rosy red.
"She'll tell that to Miss Prim, Pickle—see if she don't," whispered Sally, anxiously, to her friend.
"Do you think so?" queried Pickle, hastily; then, with marked indifference, "Yes, I suppose she will. I wonder if she'll find out who did it?"