FEBRUARY 15: The Desk and the Ink-Well
“I misbehave most frightfully if children don’t pay me attention,” said the Ink-Well.
“Yes,” said the Desk. “And then you make me suffer.”
“Do you really know what I mean?” asked the Ink-Well.
“Of course,” said the Desk. “If, for instance, a little girl or a boy is pouring from the great big grandfather Ink-Bottle and is giving you something more in the way of a nice Inky fluid or drink, and if the little girl looks the other way, you spill.”
“I don’t spill. I turn a somersault, or I trickle down the desk.”
“Yes, down me,” said the Desk. “And do you think it is very nice to make me suffer?”
“Ha, ha,” laughed the Ink-Well, “as if you cared whether I trickled down over you or not. You are made of wood and you don’t care.”
“That’s so,” agreed the Desk, “but even if I am made of wood I like to be varnished and made over nice and fresh every little while. It’s just like having one’s face washed.”
“But people who have their faces washed,” said the Ink-Well, “(though I do believe they always wash their faces themselves) do so far more than once a year. That is as often as you get your face washed or varnished.”
“Well, I’m made of wood, you see,” said the Desk, “and so I don’t care. Once a year does quite nicely for me. Besides it would be quite utterly useless any oftener for you’d only spill over me and I’d get quite horrid looking.”
“That’s polite of you, I’m sure,” said the Ink-Well, “to say you’d look horrid with some of my nice ink on you. It adds a lot I think.”
“It may add ink,” said the Desk, “but it doesn’t add beauty.”
But the school bell was ringing and so the Desk and Ink-Well were silent.