"Oh, jacks! Let me play too!" Gloria cried, clambering up and sitting cross-legged on the green felt of the billiard table; and Flip realized that one reason Gloria never lacked for partners, or a place in the Common Room games, was that she never hesitated to ask. "Come on, Jackie," Erna called. "Climb up." Flip was quite good at jacks and Gloria bounced up and down impatiently. "Come on, Pill, miss can't you? I want a turn." And she gave Flip's elbow a jog, but Flip caught the ball and laughed triumphantly. "Good for you, Flip," Erna cried. "You can't play if you're going to cheat, Glo." "It's Erna's turn next, anyhow," Jackie said. "By the way, Pill, I think it's a dirty shame Hauser made you drop skiing." "Me too." Erna nodded so violently that her hair came out of the barette and she had to fasten it again. Flip thought of the progress she had already made on her skis, and smiled to herself. Then she shrugged, "Well, if she thinks I'm too impossible to teach, I guess that's that." "The old minge, the mangy old minge," Gloria muttered. "I say, Pill. What're you going to be when you get out of this place, an artist?" Flip nodded. "I'd like to be. The way my father is. I'd like to paint portraits and do illustrations for children's books." She reached wildly for the jacks' ball, which was this time an old golf ball Gloria's mother had sent, but it bounced off the table and Erna scrambled after it. "At last," she said, bringing it back and collecting the jacks. "I'm going to be a doctor like _my_ father. I think it must be wonderful to cut people up and put them back together again." Underneath her joking words Flip could tell that she was serious. "The trouble is that you can't always put them back together again," Jackie said. "I will." Erna swept up her jacks with a confident gesture. "If people have their legs and things blown off I'll discover a way to put them back or give them new ones off dead people." Flip started to tell Erna that Paul wanted to be a doctor too, but Gloria, who didn't mind when she herself talked about glass eyes or false teeth, put her hands over her ears. "Oh, stop! Stop!" "Well, dead people can give their eyes so blind people can see," Erna said, "so I don't see why they shouldn't give their legs and things, too." Gloria clapped her hand over Erna's mouth. "You go talk about your old operations somewhere else." "Who asked you to play jacks anyhow?" Erna mumbled from behind Gloria's hand. "Let go and let me play. I'm on fivesies, eggs in the basket." "Foursies." "Fivesies." "It's fivesies," Flip corroborated. "Are you going to be a movie actress, Jackie?" Jackie laughed and waved her arms. "My father says I'll be an actress over his dead body. I haven't thought about it much. Maybe I'll just be a wife like my mother. She says that's a career in itself, only lots of people forget it." "Love," Gloria sighed, "that's what I'm cut out for."