"Will the poor fellow die?" the girls asked with awestruck faces. Jessop shook her head enigmatically. "It depends how much damage is done. You never can tell in a case like this till the Doctor has seen him. You may be sure your uncle will do the best that human skill can." "That goes without saying," said Mavis as she and Merle went gravely upstairs to wash their hands for tea. CHAPTER XVII The Sick Clown Opal turned up at school next morning in one of her most defiant and reckless moods. She marched into the cloakroom with a jaunty "don't care" air, and immediately began to talk about the circus. "I was caught neatly, wasn't I!" she proclaimed. "Never got such a surprise in my life as when you all came parading in like a flock of lambkins. Miss Pollard had rather spasms to judge from her face." "_You'll_ get spasms later on if I'm not mistaken," said Merle. "Oh, I can always fix up the poor old dears. They've a blind eye where I'm concerned." "How about that note you wrote?" "Well, I _had_ a headache, only it got better in time for the circus. I'm a wonderful person at getting well when I make up my mind to it. Will power I suppose. There's nothing neurotic about me!" "You're the biggest fibber I know!" "What _are_ fibs?" asked Opal flippantly. "I only make a little picturesque variation sometimes instead of telling the brutal truth. It's what's called diplomacy, and finesse, and all the rest of it. In a matter of expediency I hedge the question." "Use the plain Anglo-Saxon word 'lie' and I understand you," retorted Merle, turning disgustedly away. Opal laughed, and some of the younger children, who had been standing like little pitchers listening with all their ears, laughed too. "Look here, you kids," said Merle, facing round again. "You may think all this is very clever and funny, but I tell you it's most dishonourable. You've some queer notions in this school. I wouldn't give anything for a head girl who can't speak the truth. She's not worth her salt. Yes, I mean it. All this underhand work isn't done in decent schools, and the sooner you get that into your silly little noddles the better. Fibbers were 'sent to Coventry' at Whinburn High." "Were they indeed," mocked Opal. "What an extremely superior place it must have been. I wonder you condescend to stay at The Moorings among such a set as ourselves. We're evidently not good enough for you." Merle took no further notice but walked away, and Opal followed her, giggling, into the classroom. She thought matters would be passed over by the Principal as they had always been condoned before. Her boast that she could do what she liked with her godmothers had hitherto been justified. She had, however, gone a step too far. Miss Pollard's eyes had at last been opened, and in the light of yesterday she suddenly began to remember very many sinister incidents which might easily be set down to the head girl's influence.