ut and rosy they nicknamed her
"German Sausage", and made fun of her almost to her face.

A part of Fraeulein Hochmeyer's system of voice production which her
pupils much detested was learning the proper position of the mouth. It
was of course a most important and necessary part of the lesson, but
owing to the way it was enforced the silly girls turned it all into
ridicule. Fraeulein would stand upon the platform giving a practical
demonstration to show how the lips must be well drawn back, revealing
the teeth parted about the third of an inch, so as to offer no
obstruction to the free passage of the voice; and she would require her
pupils to stand at attention with their mouths thus fixed before
beginning the preliminary exercises.

"We look like a set of grinning imbeciles!" complained Lennie Chapman,
"with Sausage for the arch-lunatic of us all. I wish to goodness we had
a decent English teacher! I don't like these foreign ways."

"You'd like it still less if you were turned into a pattern pupil like
me!" grumbled Gipsy. "I hate making an exhibition of myself."

Gipsy, being an apt copyist, was able to set her mouth at exactly the
right angle, and in consequence her approving teacher would frequently
beckon her on to the platform with the invitation:

"Dear friendt, com here and show ze ozers how you do open ze mouz."

The letters "th" were an impossibility to Fraeulein's German tongue, and
the girls giggled continually at the "z's" that replaced them. Gipsy was
not at all proud of being forced to set an example to the class, and
would ascend the platform with an ill grace, and look the reverse of
flattered at the encouraging pats that were bestowed upon her shoulders.
Really Fraeulein had the kindest heart in the world, and tried, in her
heavy fashion, to be on excellent terms with her pupils, but she did not
in the least comprehend the mind of the British schoolgirl.

"She treats us exactly as if we were kindergarten babies!" sneered Hetty
Hancock. "I don't know how German girls of our age would enjoy her silly
jokes, but I think she's a rotter!"

"And she's so sentimental!" hinnied Daisy Scatcherd. "I nearly had a fit
when she began to troll out that love song, with her hand laid
touchingly on her heart."

"That sort of rubbish may go down in the Fatherland, but it doesn't
here."

The girls had waxed restive at many of the _Lieder_ which they were
obliged to learn, but when Fraeulein turned up one morni