of her friend Sally, "has a
man, even if he is a German, to come to a girls' boarding-school looking
like a guy?"

Sally, who was trying to dispose of two thick slices of bread and butter
before recitation, was too much occupied to answer.

But Pickle was not particular about an answer, and continued, nodding
her head in the direction of the hall: "Look at him out there, now. Such
a great broad-shouldered man. And then see how he blushes. And do just
look at that long curly hair, 'way down to his shoulders. Gracious! I
should think he'd be ashamed of it."

Pickle evidently resented the teacher's fine curls, which _were_ too
long for a man, as a personal insult to herself, it being one of the
sorrows of her life that her own thick hair was kept cropped by her
mother's orders.

"I know I sha'n't like him," she added to herself, as the unfortunate
possessor of the obnoxious curls entered the room.

He was not naturally a nervous man, he thought, but he had never taught
girls before, and he found the calm, cool scrutiny to which he was being
subjected by every member of the class something formidable. He would
rather teach fifty boys, he said to himself, than these fifteen girls.

Pickle, from her desk, watched the new teacher's every movement. She
laughed to see him nervously twist his feet around the leg of the chair,
while a smile of scorn played over her lips when he ran his fingers
through his waving locks.

"Sal," she whispered, "ain't he too funny for anything, though? I hope
he speaks English with an accent; that is, if he ever gets the courage
to speak at all."

These disrespectful whispers, though inaudible to Herr Mueller, were
terminated by his speaking at that moment. In the very mildest possible
tones he asked, "Vill some young lady haf ze goodness to acquaint me
eggsactly how far ze class haf read in ze book?"

"Oh, he's as meek as Moses, and speaks worse than Professor Schultz used
to!" was Pickle's murmured comment upon this speech; while Alice Smith
rose to say that the class had read as far as the twenty-fourth page,
fifteenth line.

"No, we haven't, either," immediately exclaimed Pickle. Then, as Herr
Mueller looked inquiringly at her, "We only got to the fourteenth line. I
just mentioned it," she added, as the girls tittered, "because you
wanted to know eggsactly."

Herr Mueller frowned, but judged it best to take no notice of this
speech, merely saying to the speaker, "Vill you haf ze goo