nvy. Fancy being able, at a
moment's notice, to bolt out of reach (even out of sight and hearing) of
all that was obnoxious to a fellow! I pictured myself, when some
particularly harassing question had been put by my governess, springing
from my seat, snatching the ever-ready shining rope and making for some
friendly cornice, where, with my six or eight legs wrapped round my head, I
would settle down for a snug sleep, not to be disturbed by any female.

Yet, I had to admit, that if any one in the schoolroom played the role of
spider, it was Mrs. Handsomebody herself, whose desk was the centre of a
web of books, pencils, rulers and a cane, in the meshes of which we three
were caught like young flies, before our bright wings had been unfolded.

I looked at The Seraph. After slavishly making pot hooks all the afternoon,
he was now licking them off his slate with unaffected relish. I turned to
Angel.

With hands thrust deep in his pockets he was staring disconsolately at the
unfinished sum before him. I, too, had given it up in despair.

"It's mediocre," he muttered. "Absolutely mediocre, and I won't stand it."

_Mediocre._ It was a new word to me, and I wondered where he had picked it
up. It was like Angel to spring it on me this way.

"Awfully mediocre," I assented. "And it can't be done."

A flicker of annoyance crossed his face that his new word should be thus
lightly bandied, but he went on--"Just listen here: an apple-woman who had
four score of apples in her cart, sold three dozen at four pence,
half-penny a dozen; two and a half dozen at five pence a dozen. At what
price would she have to sell the remaining, in order to realize"--

"And look here," I interrupted, wrathfully, "Why does she always give us
sums about an apple-woman, or a muffin-man? It just makes a chap hungry.
Why doesn't she make one up about a dentist for a change, or somethin' like
that?"

"Yes," assented Angel, catching at the idea. "Like this: if a dentist
pulled five teeth out of one lady, and seven and a half out of another, at
two shillings apiece how many must he pull in order to--"

"Then there's undertakers," I broke in. "If a undertaker buried nine
corpses one day, and six and a half the next--"

I had to stop, for Angel was convulsed with laughter, and The Seraph was
beginning to get noisy.

Angel produced a small bottle of licorice water from his pocket and took a
long mouthful. Then he handed it to me. It was soothing, delic