hocolates I was thinking
of. The scoop I mean is going to school. It's a jolly sight better than
rotting about here with a beastly governess."

"You can't expect any governess to enjoy being robbed of her glycerine
and cucumber," I said. "You wouldn't like it yourself."

"That wasn't the real reason," said Lalage. "Even Cattersby had more
sense than that."

"She means," said the Canon, "that it didn't begin there."

"No," I said, "it began with the character of Mary."

"It didn't," said Lalage. "She'd forgotten all about that and so had I.
What really began it was my birthday. For three weeks I had suggested a
holiday for that day from the tyrant. Her answer had ever been: 'A half
will do you nicely.' If pressed: 'You are very ungrateful. I may not
give you even that.' So I acted boldly. It was breakfast time and we
were eating fish----"

"Trout," said the Canon. "I remember the morning perfectly. Tom
Kitterick caught them the day before. I took him out with me. The
Archdeacon had been over to see me."

"Laying down my fork," Lalage went on, "I said to no one in
particular----"

"Excuse me, Lalage," I said, "but is this a quotation from the last
number of the _Anti-Cat?_"

"It is. I had an article about it. How did you guess?"

"There was something in the style of the narrative, a certain quite
appreciable literary flavour which suggested the _Anti-Cat_; but please
go on and keep to the words of the article as far as possible. You had
just got to where you spoke to no one in particular."

"Laying down my fork, I said to no one in particular: 'Of course I get
a holiday for my birthday.' 'I think a half----' began she. 'Of course,'
said father loudly, 'a holiday on such a great occasion.' Her face fell.
Her scowl deepened. To hide her rage she blew her nose. There was a
revengeful glitter in her eye."

Lalage paused.

"I need scarcely tell you," said the Canon, "that I had no idea when I
spoke that there had been any previous discussion of the subject."

"The article ends there, I suppose," I said.

"Yes," said Lalage. "She had it in for me after that worse than ever,
knowing that I had jolly well scored off her."

"And in the end she broke out over your effort to improve Tom
Kitterick's complexion?"

"She sneaked," said Lalage; "sneaked to father. I wrote an article about
that. It's in my box if you'd like to see it."

The Canon's eyes met mine. Then we both looked at our watches. We had
still ten