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 Miss Worthington fairly jumped.

“Think you’re going to find the Kohinoor or the Drums of Jeopardy?”

“Whadda you mean?” demanded Miss Worthington.

“Sounds too funny,” said the Scout Master, “to hear you say you are Miss Worthington and then say ‘whadda.’ I should think the Bee Master would have taught you when you was about two years old to say ‘What do you,’ and I didn’t suppose you would know what I was referring to, but it’s strange he didn’t teach his own child. He’s the one who taught me that the Kohinoor is the biggest sparkler in the world, and the Drums of Jeopardy are the biggest emeralds. I got that out of a picture show. It was a hair-raiser, too. And it had the prettiest girl in it, a girl with dark hair and eyes and a reasonable amount of lip stick and her make-up on straight, and she could act, too! She was just a humdinger, I’ll tell che world!”

“If you are so carefully educated,” said Miss Worthington, “why do you use the slang that you do?”

The little Scout laughed.

“Oh, I’ve got to sling that brand of guff to keep in favour with the Scouts. If I talked among them the way Dad makes me talk at home, I wouldn’t be Scout Master with my bunch very long. When we play we’re Indians and bandits and pirates and things like that, we talk that way ‘cause it makes it realler, and anyway, nobody expects a ten-year-old kid to talk the way a woman of thirty would.”

“I am not thirty!” snapped Miss Worthington.