st fashion while he fumbled
clumsily at his task. Rumour had it that she even rapped his knuckles
with the scissors when he took up half a dozen threads at once in his
second darn; and even Mrs Trevor was obliged to laugh at her imitation
of Miles' grimaces when trying to thread a needle. In the end Pam was
made happy by being commissioned to thread dozens of needles with long
black and white threads, and then stick them in a special needle-book,
with their tails twisted neatly round and round.

As for Cynthia, she revelled in her position as instructress.

"I've suffered so much myself, that it is simply lovely to turn the
tables on someone else," she announced. "I am going to see this
business through in a proper and well-regulated fashion. Now that the
technical course is finished, you are going to be put through a _viva
voce_ examination. Sit down in front of the work-basket, and answer
without any shuffling or trying to escape. Now then! Distinguish
between a darning-needle and a bodkin." She nipped up Mrs Trevor's
spectacles from a side-table, as she spoke, perched them on the end of
her nose, and stared over them with an assumption of great severity.
Miles grinned complacently.

"Easy enough. One pricks and the other doesn't."

"A very superficial reply! To what separate and distinctive duties
would you apply the two?"

"Wouldn't apply them at all if I had my way," began the pupil daringly,
but a flash of his mistress's eye recalled him promptly to order, and he
added hastily, "One you use to darn things up with, and the other to
drag strings through tunnel sort of businesses, and bring them out at
the other side."

"No engineering terms, please! Your matter is correct, but the manner
leaves much to be desired. Question number two is--Which thread would
you use to affix (a) a shirt, (b) a boot, (c) a waistcoat button?"

"The first that came handy," replied Miles recklessly, whereupon Pam
squealed with dismay, and was for labelling all her needles forthwith,
but Cynthia rapped sternly on the table, and would have each bobbin
brought out in turn, and so carefully examined that its qualities could
not easily be forgotten. Then, and only then, would she consent to pass
on to the third question, which concerned itself with the vexed question
of darning.

"Three, State clearly, and in sequence, the steps necessary for
repairing a hole in the sole of your sock."

Miles shrugged his shoulders with