The Camellia Buds considered that they possessed a real grievance. The difference between an animated toy-shop and waxworks was so slight as to be immaterial. In both the figures would require to be wound up, after which they would perform various antics. The idea had certainly originated with Peachy, and the Starry Circle had merely copied it. Their stunt was in fact a shameless plagiarism.

"Why couldn't they have joined with us and we'd have done the toy-shop all together?" demanded Agnes crossly.

"Oh, I don't know. It's just their perversity. It'll look so stupid to have two separate shows. Whichever comes last will seem so stale after the other."

"Why, of course, ours will come first! It must!"

"There'll be a fight for it."

"We can't squabble at the carnival with Miss Rodgers and Miss Morley looking on. We'd better have our battle beforehand and get it over."

"Tell the Stars we mean to have first innings?"

"They'll never agree!"[127]

"Look here, it's no use coming to open war with them. I vote we try diplomacy. Has anybody thought of the programs yet?"

"I heard the seniors groaning over having to paint covers for them."

"Well, let's go to them privately and volunteer to help. Then we shall have the opportunity of telling them that the Transition stunt is to be in two divisions, and that Part I will be taken by ourselves."

"Quite a brain-throb!"

"Renie, I'm beginning to admire you!"

"Peachy can paint beautifully!"

"So can Joan and Esther. Shall I go and say we offer to do six programs? Right-o! Come with me, Peachy. You're our champion wheedler."

The two delegates started at once on their diplomatic mission. They felt indeed that there was no time to be lost. They found several of the prefects collected in Rachel's bedroom, where possibly they were having a little private candy party, for there were sounds of a rustling of paper and a shutting of drawers before they were granted permission to enter the precincts. The Transition girls always envied the seniors' rooms. These were on the seaward side of the house, and their balcony had glorious views over the bay and the surrounding coast. The decorations were very tasteful. The walls were gray, with a stenciled frieze of hydrangeas, and there were soft-shaded Indian rugs on the polished[128] wood floor. Rachel and her roommates had provided their own luxuries in the way of pretty cushions, table-covers, pictures, and flower-vases, and the general effect was of harmonious comfort.

"Well? What can I do for you?" inquired the head girl briefly, as Stella admitted the diplomats.

It was not a very encouraging reception. Possibly the prefects were annoyed at being disturbed in the midst of what they were doing.

Peachy, however, ignored Rachel's tone, and putting on her most winning smile inquired:

"We wonder if you're painting any program covers for the carnival?"

Rachel lolled back in her chair and retied the bow that terminated her long dark pigtail.

"Perhaps we are and perhaps we aren't," was her somewhat cryptic reply.

"The matter's in our hands entirely, of course," cooed Sybil, rocking to and fro on a cane sedia.

"I know," put in Irene, trying to be tactful. "We only thought that perhaps you might care to have a little help. Some of us would be ready to paint a few if you like."

This put a different complexion on the case. The seniors, always bristling for their privileges, resented idle curiosity—on the part of the Transition. But an offer of help was another matter.

"There certainly is a great number to be done," said Erica, with a beseeching look at Rachel.

The head girl thawed a little.[129]

"Well, we shouldn't mind your taking a few off our hands," she conceded. "Half a dozen? Sybil, will you get those programs out of my drawer? Put anything you like on them—flowers, birds, figures, or landscapes. I'll lend you this to copy the printing from. Let me have them by Thursday if you can."

Rachel glanced meaningly at the door, as if she considered the interview might now with decency come to an end. Neither Peachy nor Irene took the hint, however. The main object of their mission had not yet been broached.

"You've not written the program inside yet," commented Peachy, opening one of the covers.

"We'll do that later."

"Shall we copy some for you?"

"Oh, no, thanks!"

Then Irene, growing desperate, blurted out what they had really come to say.

"The Transition stunt is to be in two parts this time. Bertha and Mabel are arranging one, and Peachy is getting up another. Do you mind putting ours down to come first?"

"Sorry, but I'm afraid it can't be done," yawned Rachel. "Bertha has been up and bagged first innings. I wrote it down, didn't I, Stella? Where's that list? Yes, here we are. The juniors are to come first, because Miss Morgan has trained them and she thinks they'll get the fidgets if they wait, and it's better to have their performance over.[130] Then, of course, comes our stunt, and then the Transition."

"Could we possibly have our half of the Transition stunt before yours? It would make more variety."

"Most certainly not!"

Rachel's brow was puckered in a frown, and Sybil, from the depths of the rocking-chair, murmured, "Cheek!"

"We've got the program all fixed up, and we're not going to change it for anybody," chirped Erica.

"Any one who isn't satisfied needn't act," endorsed Rachel, with such a very decided glance at the door that the two delegates could no longer obtrude their presence, and were obliged to beat an unwilling retreat.

They walked along the passage very dissatisfied with the result of their mission.

"We've got all the fag of painting these wretched programs, and gained nothing at all," groused Irene.

"They might have told us first about Bertha. Isn't she an absolute Jacob—supplanting us like this?"

"Those seniors are most unsympathetic. I want to go back and tell Rachel what I think of her."

"She'd only say, 'How foreign' if you got excited. And it wouldn't be an atom of use either."

"They've taken the best place in the program for their stunt."

"Trust the prefects to do that."[131]

"What's to be done about it?"

"It will need some thinking over."

Peachy's agile brains were rarely to be beaten. She slept upon the problem, and informed her friends afterwards that inspiration came to her at exactly 3 a.m.

"I know, because I heard the convent clock strike. I sat up in bed and laughed. I wonder I didn't wake the dormitory, but nobody stirred a finger. Listen, and I'll explain. The situation at present is this: Bertha and her Starry Circle have cribbaged our idea and forestalled us on the program, and are going to act their wretched waxworks first, and are congratulating themselves that their piece will take the shine out of ours."

"So it will, I'm afraid. The audience will have sat through the juniors' play, the seniors' stunt, and the waxworks. They'll be bored stiff to see our toy-shop straight away afterwards."

"Well, they shan't see it. That's my idea. Let's drop the toy-shop and do something quite different."

"drop our toy-shop! O-o-h!"

"We'll do it some other time. But you see we've one advantage on the program at any rate. We come last."

"That's what we're raving against."

"I know! But if you think of it, it's a great opportunity. Suppose we do a splendid finishing tableau instead of animated toys? It would make a magnificent wind-up, and would be a surprise for[132] everybody. Think of the amazement of the Starry Circle, when they're expecting us to do a pale copy of their own stunt, to see us posed as a tableau, and everybody clapping the roof off."

"It would be rather sporty."

"Only I did so want to dress up as a kangaroo," mourned Joan dolefully.

"You shall be Australia instead, and you'll look far nicer. I'll guarantee to make you ever so pretty. It's to be an Anglo-American pageant, to symbolize the school. We'll have Columbia and Britannia and all her colonies, in a sort of entente cordiale. You'll see it will please Miss Morley and Miss Rodgers no end. That Starry Circle will be just aching with envy. They'll wish they'd been in it. It will absolutely take the wind out of their sails and lay them flat."

"Peachy Proctor, there's a spice of genius in your composition," said Jess admiringly. "I could never have thought of that myself."

"Oh, fiddlesticks! Glad you approve though. Now what we've got to do is to hustle up and get busy over costumes. They'll take some contriving. Hide all your best things away from the Stars, or they'll be commandeering them. Mabel has no conscience. And be careful that not the least teeny-weeny hint leaks out. Let's talk openly about the toy-shop, and pretend we're still going on practicing for it. It will be all the bigger sell for them when they find out."[133]

The Camellia Buds, having undertaken to paint six program covers, nobly did their duty and finished them in the prescribed time. Lorna offered to take them to Rachel's room, and met with quite a gracious reception from the head girl. So much so that she ventured to put forward a suggestion of her own.

"May Part I of the Transition stunt have a time limit?" she asked. "We want to have some idea when we're to come on."

"Certainly," agreed Rachel. "We can't let Part I go on ad infinitum. I hadn't thought of that. I shall tell Bertha she may have ten minutes and no longer. I shall ring the curtain bell if she exceeds. I see your poi............