Читать книгу Miss Bunting онлайн

19 страница из 93

"No, no news," she said. "But I don't expect any. It will come some day. Or else it won't."

At this moment Master Gresham came up, bursting with suppressed giggles.

"I say, mother," he began, "do you know this poem?

'It was the miller's daughter, Her father kept a mill, There were otters in the water, But she was 'otter still.'

Tom Watson told it me. There are a lot more verses. Shall I tell them you?"

Horrified at the resurgence of this hoary and vapid echo of early Edwardian humour, Jane said they must hurry up or they would be late for lunch.

"But, mother, isn't it funny," said Frank, dancing from one foot to another.

"I know a much better one," said his mother, "in Latin."

"You don't know Latin, do you, mother?" said Master Gresham, obviously incredulous.

"Not as well as Robin, but much better than you," said Jane, manfully. "Can you read this?"

She took a pencil out of her bag and wrote something on the back of an envelope.

"Caesar adsum jam forte," Frank read. "That's not Latin, mother. I mean it doesn't mean anything. Sir," he added, appealing to his master, "it doesn't mean anything, does it?"