he next thing,
I s'pose. Paid 'is way though, 'e did, and 'e didn't make no bones about
the bill."

"Did he leave his name and address?" asked Marjory, as soon as she could
get in a word.

"Bless you, miss, I didn't want no address; the less I knows about 'im
the better, strikes me. But 'is name was 'Iggs--so 'e said; but that
might 'ave bin a _halibi_, for all I can tell--you do read sich things
in the papers nowadays. Might I ask if you was wantin' any odd jobs
done, miss? My old man's out o' work, an'--"

"Oh no, thank you," said Marjory, cutting the woman short; "I only
wanted to inquire." And she turned Brownie's head in the direction of
Braeside. "Good-morning. I'm much obliged to you."

Marjory was bitterly disappointed at the failure of her peacemaking
mission, for she had set out almost certain of success. She wondered
whether the man was really a bad character, and whether he had been set
upon by the keepers, and so got his clothes torn. So it wasn't Mr. Shaw
after all. It was very disappointing, and Marjory sighed. She smiled,
however, as she thought over English Mary's voluble explanation and her
queer language. The King would hardly recognize it as his.

Marjory found the study of the King's English very interesting. As Miss
Waspe presented it to her, it was not contained in a lifeless
grammar-book, the terror of many schoolgirls' lives, but it was a
wonderful living medium of expression--a means by which she could
translate her ideas and imaginings into musical phrases, and which
enabled her to understand the spoken and written thoughts of others.
Miss Waspe had a way of dressing up hard facts and tiresome rules in the
most attractive clothing, and like the dog who unconsciously and
gratefully swallows a pill in a succulent tit-bit, her pupil assimilated
both with excellent results.

Blanche said to Marjory one day, "I _can't_ think how you can like that
horrid grammar. If I was a boy, or, according to _it_, _were_ I a boy, I
should call it a beastly grind; but as mother doesn't like me to use
boys' words, I have to call it a horrid nuisance or some other tame
thing like that. Anyway, I feel it is a b-e-a-s-t-l-y g-r-i-n-d, so
there."

"I don't wonder your mother doesn't like you to use boys' words; you're
much too pretty," replied Marjory. "They are far more suitable for me,
because I am big and rough-looking, like a boy, and you are just like a
piece of thin china--like that Dresden shepherdess