Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/99

 cases wiv Mrs. Jessop. She'll need me up to four o'clock when Adar comes."

"Perhaps you might just act a bit haughty and keep your face turned away."

May snorted. "Look 'ere, Delight. If you can't think o' something besides baby-talk, don't try to 'elp. The very idear, as though I could be 'aughty wiv me lip all caved in. Keep a stiff upper lip! 'Aven't you ever 'eard o' that saying? Well, 'ow d'you s'pose I'm going' to keep a stiff upper lip when me teeth's busted?" She dropped her teeth into her apron pocket, picked up the fish and the knife, and faced her friend belligerently.

A man crossed the stable-yard driving a team of heavy draught horses. He had left his waggon in the shed and was taking the horses to water. Their sleek sides shone like chestnuts, they lifted their large, hairy legs jauntily. In a moment they plunged their thirsty lips into the trough. The man leaned against the flank of the nearest and stared at the girls.

"I know," cried Delight, inspiration coming when she had ceased to seek for it. "You must say you've a face ache. Wrap your face up with a great bandage and say you've a gathering tooth."

It was lucky that Mrs. Jessop sent Delight to get some camphor for her that morning. The dentist's office was over the chemist's shop, so it did not take her long to fly up the narrow stairway and timidly present the broken plate to the dentist. He was a fatherly man, staring over his spectacles at the bright vision obtruding into his dingy domain. She explained that the teeth had been broken when she and her friend were having a little tussle, nothing much, only play, but the teeth couldn't stand it. He promised that he would try to have them mended by the next day.