'Pip' is occasionally used as an abbreviation for that name. Is your name Philip, little boy?" she asked, leaning forward to Pip, with a glance which he would have valued considerably more if he had been ten years older.

"I don't know," said Pip.

"I think it must be Philip," said Miss Amelia, turning to her father.

So Pip was inscribed on the roll as Philip, which, as it happened, was his real name. (By the way, his surname was Wilmot.)

"Now, your first baptismal name, little girl?" [Pg 33] said Mr. Pocklington briskly, turning to Pipette.

[Pg 33]

"Please, it's Pipette," she replied apprehensively.

Her fears were not ungrounded. The school began to titter.

"Pipette? My dear, that is a quite impossible name. A pipette is a small glass instrument employed in practical chemistry. Surely you have some proper baptismal name! Perhaps you can suggest a solution again," he added, turning to Miss Amelia.

No, Miss Amelia could offer no suggestion. Her forte, it appeared, was gentlemen's names. As a matter of fact, Pipette's name, as ascertained by reference to Father by post that night, was Dorothea, and she had been laughingly christened "Pipette" by her mother, because her father, when summoned from the laboratory to view his newly born daughter, had arrived holding a pipette in his hand.

So Pip and Pipette, much to their surprise and indignation, found themselves addressed as Philip and Dorothea respectively, and as such joined in the pursuit of knowledge in company with a motley crew of Arthurs, Reginalds, Ermyntrudes, Winifreds, and the like. Surnames were not employed in the school. If two children possessed the same Christian name they were distinguished by the addition of any other sub-title they happened [Pg 34] to possess. Three unfortunate youths, for instance, were addressed respectively as John Augustus, John William, and John Evelyn.

[Pg 34]

Things at Wentworth House School move in a stereotyped circle, and Pip and Pipette soon became familiar with the curriculum. There were three classes, they found. The First Class, the veterans, nearly old enough to go to a preparatory school, dwelt in a stuffy apartment called "The 

 Prev. P 21/209 next