"Oh, isn't it piggy and nasty!" exclaimed Annie, stretching out her arms in the agony of an elephantine yawn. "I want my tea! I want my tea! I want my tea! And I shan't get it for a whole long weary hour!" "Poor martyr! Here, squattez-ici on the hearth-rug and I'll make you a triscuit." "What on earth is a triscuit?" "Oh, you're not bright or you'd guess. It's a biscuit toasted nicely brown and eaten hot. Don't you twig? A biscuit means 'twice cooked'; therefore if it's cooked again it must be a triscuit. That stands to reason." "Is it to be a barmecide feast? I don't see your precious biscuits." "'"I've got 'un here," sez she, quite quiet-like,'" returned Betty, who was a Mrs. Ewing enthusiast, and quoted Dame Datchet with relish. "Half a pound of cream crackers, and I mean to be generous and share 'em round. Don't you all bless me? Now the question is, how we're going to 'triscuit' them." The girls crowded round with suggestions. Toasting biscuits was certainly more entertaining than doing nothing. Deirdre forgot for the time that she was a heroine of fiction, and plumped down by the fender with a lack of high-born dignity that would have scandalized "Lady Isobel". "You'll smash them up if you try sticking your penknife through them," she observed. "It'll burn your fingers too to hold them so close to the fire. Try the tongs." "Some of them might be tilted up in the fender," volunteered Gerda, whose rare remarks were generally to the point. "They'd be getting hot, and we could finish them off afterwards." "Right you are! Stick them up in a row. Now if I take this one with the tongs and hold it just over that red piece in the fire----" "Be careful!" "Remember it's fragile." "There, I knew you'd smash it! Oh, pick the other half out, quick! It's burning!" "What a Johnnie-fingers you are! It's done for." In the end--and it was Gerda's quiet suggestion--the tongs were placed over the fire like a gridiron and the biscuits successfully popped on the top and turned when one side was done. Everybody appreciated them down to the last crumb, and awarded Betty a vote of thanks for her brilliant idea. "The worst of it is, they're finished too soon," sighed Evie, "and we've nothing else to fill up the gap till tea-time. I want to do something outrageous--break a window or smash an ornament, or damage the furniture! What a nuisance conscience is! Why does the 'inward monitor' restrain me?" "Probably the wholesome dread of consequences my dear. You might cut your hand in a wild orgy of window smashing and there'd be bills to pay afterwards for reglazing and medical attendance." "But can't we do anything interesting?" "Let's play a trick on VA," suggested Annie. "It would do them good and shake them up. My conscience gives me full leave." "It's celebrated for its well-known elasticity!" chuckled Evie. "But what could we do?" "Oh, just rag them a little somehow. It would be rather sport."