"Well, Trotty doesn't," said Harry; "so he didn't."
"My dear man, neither did Uncle Rudolph," rejoined Miss Elliston. "That wasn't what I meant; he just had it so hard he died of it—that was all.—How is he getting on?"
"Couldn't say, I'm sure."
"I mean Trotty, of course! Poor Uncle Rudolph!"
"Very well, indeed.—Madge!" he went on, gathering courage for a break, "I didn't come here to-night to talk about Uncle Rudolph!"
Miss Elliston raised her eyebrows ever so little and went on, with unabated cheerfulness: "We were talking about Jack Trotwood, I thought. However, here's this arithmetic; you can help me with that. Do you know anything about percentage? It's not so hard, when you really put your mind to it. Given the principal and interest, to find the rate—that's easy enough. Useful, too; if you know how much a person has a year all you have to do is to find what it's invested in and look it up on the financial page, and you can tell just what their capital is! It's quite simple!"
"Oh, yes, perfectly simple."
"Let's see—Florrie Vicars; did you ever hear of any one whose name was really Florrie before?... Florrie gets a C—she generally does. That isn't on a scale of A B C, it stands for 'correct.' Did you ever hear of anything so delightfully Victorian? That's the way we do things at Miss Snellgrove's.... Sadie Jones—wouldn't you know that a girl called Sadie Jones who wrote like that—look at those sevens—would have frizzy yellow hair and sticky-out front teeth?"
"Yes, indeed, without any doubt."
"Well, as a matter of fact she has straight black hair and a pure Grecian profile and is altogether the most beautiful creature you ever saw!... Marjorie Hamlin—she never could add two and two straight.... Jennie Fairbanks...."