Pip : A Romance of Youth
trees in the garden in the Square. (But you can get over this difficulty by pretending to be a boy or a monkey for half an hour.)

VI. Girls never have dirty hands—only boys. (For solution of this difficulty see note on V.)

VII. You must never tell tales. Girls must be specially careful about this, not because they are more prone to do so, but because boys think they are.

VIII. Real men never kiss girls, but they may sometimes permit girls to kiss them.

IX. You must eat up your bread-and-butter before you have any cake. (This rule holds good, they found out later, all through life.)

[Pg 26] X. Do not blow upon your tea to cool it: this is very vulgar. Pour it into your saucer instead.

[Pg 26]

Clearly it was high time they went to school, and Father, who had had vague thoughts for some time about "procuring a tutor" for Pip, finally made up his mind, and despatched both children one morning in the brougham to Mr. Pocklington's.

The school was a comfortable-looking building, standing inside high walls in a secluded corner of Regent's Park. On the gate shone a large brass plate bearing the inscription—

 WENTWORTH HOUSE SCHOOL AND KINDERGARTEN.

 Mr. POCKLINGTON. The Misses POCKLINGTON. 

Mr.

The Misses

The children could not read this, but Mr. Evans, who accompanied them in the brougham on the first morning, kindly consented to do so, his efforts to pronounce the word "Kindergarten" (an enterprise upon which he embarked before realising that he might with perfect safety have left it out altogether) pleasantly beguiling [Pg 27] the time until the gate was opened by a boy in buttons.

[Pg 27]

Pip and Pipette found themselves in a cheerful-looking hall, larger and brighter than that at home, and stood staring with solemn eyes at the unwonted objects around them. From a room on their right came a 
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