human
Who takes us?
gpt
Maddy, of course--Mademoiselle de Lavernais.
human
What's she like?
gpt
Awfully old and dried up, and a sort of front thing on her head in tight curls.
human
Can't think why Miss Conyngham doesn't have somebody younger, Syb chimed in.
gpt
No one else is really old at the Coll. I bet Maddy's sixty if she's a day.
human
More, Barbara suggested.
gpt
Look at her wrinkles. She ought to be pensioned off or something; I should think she jolly well deserves it--she's been here more than twenty years someone told me.
human
Is she nice?
gpt
Nice!--you wait till you go a howler in form!
human
Having me on?
gpt
No, you stupid; can't you see when we're talking sense? Noreen said.
human
I ought to know; I'm always in her black books. She simply can't bear me.
gpt
Says Noreen doesn't think or something,
human
As if anyone could be bothered to think right through a stuffy French conversation class.
gpt
shrieked Joey.
human
It isn't French conversation, is it?
gpt
Isn't it just?--Maddy says heaps of girls can write French decently, but hardly anyone can speak it; so every Wednesday morning Remove II. B has the treat--I don't think!--of conversing with her in French, and you mayn't just say, '_Il pluit_,' or something like that, and then dry up; you've got to converse, and she goes on till she drags it out of you.
human
Does everyone?
gpt
She picks the girls. Pretty sure to go for you as you're new. She'll want to know what your French is like.
human
She won't take long to find out that it's utterly hopeless,
gpt
I say! wouldn't it be rather a rag to put Jocelyn--Joey, I mean--up to some perfectly awful French that would take half the lesson to correct? suggested Noreen, of the fertile brain.
human
Then _we'd_ get a rest.
gpt
Brainy plan, approved Barbara.
human
But would you mind, Joey? You can't get into a row, you see, because she can't know if you really know any French or not; she'll only just point out to you where you're wrong, in the kind of tone which implies that they wouldn't keep idiots of your kind in France at any price, and you'll have to say, '_Merci bien_,' or is it '_Beaucoup_'?--I never can remember which--and '_Je comprends_', or is it '_C'est comprenné_'?--one _does_ get out in the hols!--at proper intervals, and look intelligent----
gpt
Never mind if it's a bit of a strain,