So she filled a box with cotton-wool, put the Memory-Saver in it, and placed it on top of the wardrobe.
"Are you quite comfortable?" she asked; and the Memory-Saver almost nodded himself out of his box in his joy. It was Paradise after the Witch's pocket.
"What a good thing he doesn't want anything to eat," thought Myra, noticing with satisfaction that the woodwork of the wardrobe quite hid him from anyone below. "The Witch said he feeds on the lessons. How horrible! I shouldn't like French verbs for breakfast, and grammar for dinner. They can't be satisfying, but anyhow, they're easy to get. I always have more than I want."
For some days the Memory-Saver was a great success. Myra put him carefully in her pocket before she went to school, and pulled the right string when she was called up to say her lessons. His voice was rather a sing-song, but that couldn't be helped. Miss Prisms, the schoolmistress, sent home to Myra's delighted mother a report that her little girl was making wonderful progress in everything but arithmetic and writing. In these, alas, the Memory-Saver could not help her. He could say tables, and weights and measures, but could not do sums in his head, for the simple reason that he had no head.
At first he was very happy, for Myra took great care of him; but by degrees she grew careless. She found out he was quite as useful when treated roughly as when treated kindly, and as it was less trouble to treat him roughly, she did so.
"Why can't you do mental arithmetic?" she asked him, severely, one day when she had got into trouble over her sums. "Aren't you ashamed to be so ignorant, you little imp?"
The Memory-Saver waved his little tags in a wild attempt to explain that it was because he hadn't got a mind, only two little pink eyes, a big mouth, and a lot of little partitions inside him to keep the different kinds of knowledge apart. Unhappily the many bumps he had had lately had been very bad for his internal constitution, even if the bruises had not shown outside; the partitions were beginning to leak. All this he tried to explain by waving his little arms and legs. But Myra was unsympathetic and did not understand him. She scolded him heartily, and was not even melted by the little green tears that trickled from his little pink eyes into his big mouth. But she was to be punished for it. The poor little Memory-Saver had to remember all that was said to him whether he liked it or not, and so, when Myra pulled the geography string next morning in school, he began: "England is bounded on the north by Scotland.... why can't you do mental arithmetic?... on the south by the English Channel ... aren't you ashamed ... on the east by the German Ocean ... to be so ignorant ... and on the west by the Irish Sea ... you little imp ... and St. George's Channel."
"Myra!" gasped Miss Prisms, and for at least two minutes could say no more.
"I—I—didn't mean anything," stammered Myra, blushing crimson and ready to cry.
"I should hope not," said Miss Prisms, severely. "You will learn double lessons for to-morrow, Myra."