Pip. Ian Hay
"But the basin's nearly empty," said Pip. "The stuff must have gone somewhere."
"Some of it has gone on the floor," said Pipette truthfully.
At this moment the clock struck one.
"Father will be in soon," said Pip. "We'd better wipe up."
They propped the telephone receiver on the little table between the directory and a bookstand, and cleared up the mess on the floor with a handkerchief—Pipette's. As they finished they heard the brougham drive up.
"It isn't nearly all gone," said Pip gloomily, peering into the receiver. "If we hang it up on its hook the stuff will all fall out. Let's leave it like it is. Father doesn't never use the Terriphone till after lunch, and it will be all gone by then. Come on, Pipette."
The two Samaritans turned their backs upon the telephone and stole out of the room, leaving that sorely tried instrument to digest its unaccustomed luncheon as best it might.
It was Mr. Evans who suffered most. He was sent into the Consulting Room just before dinner to telephone a message to a patient. The telephone stood in a dark corner, and the gas in the room was turned low. Mr. Evans was surprised to find that the receiver, instead of hanging on its hook, was lying on the little table, carefully propped between the directory and a bookstand.
On lifting it up he was surprised by an unwonted feeling of stickiness; but when he held the instrument to the light, the reason revealed itself to him immediately in the form of a dollop of congealed chicken-broth, nicely rounded to the shape of the cup, which shot from its resting-place, with a clammy thud, on to his clean shirtfront, and then proceeded to slide rapidly down inside his dress waistcoat, leaving a snail-like track, dotted with grains of rice, behind it.
Pip was sent supperless to bed, where Pipette, completely broken down by remorse and sisterly affection, voluntarily joined him not much later. The following week they were sent to school.
CHAPTER II
MR. POCKLINGTON'S
So Pip and Pipette went to school, and life in its entirety lay at their feet.
Hitherto the social circle in which they moved had been limited on the male side to Father, Mr. Evans, and Mr. Pipes, together with the milkman, the lamplighter, and a few more nodding acquaintances; and on the female to Tattie Fowler, Cook, and a long line of housemaids. The children could neither read nor write; the fact that they possessed immortal souls was practically unrevealed to them; and their religious exercises were limited to a single stereotyped prayer, imparted by Cook, and perfunctorily delivered night and morning by the children, at the bidding of the housemaid in charge, to a mysterious Power whose sole function, so far as they could gather, was to keep an eye upon them during their attendant's frequent nights-out, and to report delinquencies (by some occult means) on her return.
Of the ordinary usages of polite society they knew little or nothing. To Pip and Pipette etiquette and deportment were summed up in the following nursery laws, as amended by the Kitchen:—
I. Girls, owing to some mysterious infirmity which is never apparent, and for which they are not responsible, must be helped first to everything.
II. A boy must on no account punch a girl, even though she is older and bigger than himself. (For reason, see I.)
III. A girl must not scratch a boy. Not that the boy matters, but it is unladylike.
IV. Real men do not play with dolls. (However, you may pretend to be a doctor, and administer medicine, without loss of dignity.)
V. Real ladies do not climb the trees in the garden in the Square. (But you can get over this difficulty by pretending to be a boy or a monkey for half an hour.)
VI. Girls never have dirty hands—only boys. (For solution of this difficulty see note on V.)
VII. You must never tell tales. Girls must be specially careful about this, not because they are more prone to do so, but because boys think they are.
VIII. Real men never kiss girls, but they may sometimes permit girls to kiss them.
IX. You must eat up your bread-and-butter before you have any cake. (This rule holds good, they found out later, all through life.)
X. Do not blow upon your tea to cool it: this is very vulgar. Pour it into your saucer instead.
Clearly it was high time they went to school, and Father, who had had vague thoughts for some time about "procuring a tutor" for Pip, finally made up his mind, and despatched both children one morning in the brougham to Mr. Pocklington's.
The school was a comfortable-looking building, standing inside high walls in a secluded corner of Regent's Park. On the gate shone a large brass plate bearing the inscription—
WENTWORTH HOUSE SCHOOL
AND
KINDERGARTEN.
Mr. POCKLINGTON.
The Misses POCKLINGTON.
The children could not read this, but Mr. Evans, who accompanied them in the brougham on the first morning, kindly consented to do so, his efforts to pronounce the word "Kindergarten" (an enterprise upon which he embarked before realising that he might with perfect safety have left it out altogether) pleasantly beguiling the time until the gate was opened by a boy in buttons.
Pip and Pipette found themselves in a cheerful-looking hall, larger and brighter than that at home, and stood staring with solemn eyes at the unwonted objects around them. From a room on their right came a subdued hum, and upstairs they could hear juvenile voices singing in chorus. They were put to wait in a small room.
Presently the door opened, and an old gentleman with white whiskers and a black velveteen jacket trotted in. Mr. Evans bowed respectfully.
"The doctor's compliments, sir, and I was to inquire what time the young lady and gentleman was to be sent for?" he said.
"Our morning hours," replied Mr. Pocklington with a precise air, "are from nine-thirty till twelve-thirty. At twelve-thirty we take exercise in the playground. Should the weather be inclement we adjourn to the Gymnasium. Luncheon is served at one-thirty, and we resume our studies at two-thirty. We desist from our labours at four."
Mr. Evans having made a dignified exit, the children, for the first time in their lives, found themselves alone in the world, and suddenly realised that the world was very big and they were very small. Pipette was at once handed over to a lady called Miss Arabella, while Pip was escorted by Mr. Pocklington to the changing-room, where he was given a peg for his coat, a peg for his cap, a locker for his boots, and a wash-hand basin for his ablutions (everything carefully labelled and numbered), and was otherwise universally equipped for the battle of life. Then he was taken into Mr. Pocklington's private sitting-room, whence, after a brief but all too adequate inquiry into his attainments, he was unhesitatingly relegated to the lowest class in the school, where he found Pipette already installed at the bottom of the bottom bench. Here we will leave them for a time, dumbly gazing at the opening page of a new reading-book, whereon appears the presentment of what they have hitherto regarded as a donkey, but which three large printed letters at the foot of the page inform them must henceforth be called an A-S-S.
Mr. Pocklington had been intended by nature for an old maid. He was an elderly faddist of a rather tiresome type, with theories upon every possible subject, from cellular underclothing to the higher education of women. He was a widower, and was assisted in the management of the school by his three daughters—Miss Mary, Miss Arabella, and Miss Amelia.
The daily routine of Wentworth House School