"Now look, all of you," he said; and,
laying it flat on the glass, he held it with the tips of the first and
second fingers, and rubbed it briskly over the pane. Off went the spots
like buckwheat cakes of a cold winter-morning!

"Oh, how nithe!" said Pip.

"Any feller could do that," said Bob.

"Yeth," said Pip, "if they'd theen anybody do it before."

* * *

"Why, Tom!" cried nurse, "where did you get that paint on your sleeve?"

"There! I told Fred Mason he'd get me all over paint, if he didn't stop
fooling," said Tom.

"It'th a wewy big thpot," said Pip.

"It'll never come off," said Tom; "and it's my new jacket, too! Mason
pushed me against the door."

"Well," said the Professor, "there's no use crying over spilt milk."

"Oh," said Pip, "is it milk in the paint that makth it so white?"

"Nonsense, Pip! The thing to do now is to get the paint off Tom's coat.
Who knows how to do it?"

"Don't fink anybody duth," said Pip.

"Hold out your arm," said the Professor. And, with the sleeve of his own
coat, he briskly rubbed the sleeve of Tom's; and away went the spot of
paint in a jiffy.

"He's wubbed it onto his own thleeve," said Pip.

But no; the Professor's sleeve was as clean as Tom's.

"Where ith it went to?" said Pip. "Oh, nurse! Ithn't that thingler?"

"I say," said Bob, "you couldn't have got it off if it had dried on your
coat."

"Perhaps not," said the Professor.

* * *

It was again luncheon-time, and Pip, Tom, and Bob were in the dining-room,
where nurse Charlotte, seated at the head of the table, was already
pouring herself out a cup of tea. She had cut bread and butter for the
children, filled their tumblers with milk, and was ready, when they should
be ready, to help them to the apple-and-sago pudding--"just the nithest
pudding in the world," as merry little Pip used to say every time it came
on table.

All the children were there but the Professor; the others did not know
where he was. Pip was the first one to see him coming across the lawn.

"How queer!" said Pip. "He'th all mud, and what hath he got in hith hand?"

"It's a turtle," says Tom.

"It'th a bird," says Pip.

"Perhaps it's a turtle-dove," says nurse.

"Should say 't was a mud-turtle by the looks of his legs," said Bob.

"Nurth, do turtle-doves live in the mud?" said Pip.

"Nonsense," said Bob, "as if birds ever lived in the mud!"

"Well," said Pip, "thum thwallows, I _kno