"It's a shame," she said, "it's a burning, wicked shame!
What's the use of fathers in the world, I'd like to know!"
"Oh, Judy!" said Meg, who was curled up in an armchair, deep in
a book. But she said it mechanically, and only as a matter of
duty, being three years older than Judy.
"Think of the times we could have if he didn't live with us,"
Judy continued, calmly disregardful. "Why, we'd have fowl
three times a day, and the pantomime seven nights a week."
Nell suggested that it was not quite usual to have pantomimic
performances on the seventh day, but Judy was not daunted.
"I'd have a kind of church pantomime," she said thoughtfully--
"beautiful pictures and things about the Holy Land, and the
loveliest music, and beautiful children in white, singing hymns,
and bright colours all about, and no collection plates to take
your only threepenny bit-oh! and no sermons or litanies, of course."
"Oh, Judy!" murmured Meg, turning a leaf. Judy unclasped her
hands, and then clasped them again more tightly than before.
"Six whole tickets wasted--thirty beautiful shillings--just
because we have a father!"
"He sent them to the Digby-Smiths," Bunty volunteered, "and wrote
on the envelope, 'With compts.
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