Mr. Twist was quiet for a bit.  He couldn’t compete with the Twinklers when it came to sheer language.  He sat hunched on his rock, his face supported by his two fists, staring out to sea while the twins watched him indignantly.  School indeed!  Then presently he pushed his hat back and began slowly to rub his ear.

“Well, I’m blest if I know what to do with you, then,” he said, continuing to rub his ear and stare out to sea.

The twins opened their mouths simultaneously at this to protest against any necessity for such knowledge on his part, but he interrupted them.  “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’d like to resume this discussion when you’re both a little more composed.”

“We’re perfectly composed,” said Anna-Felicitas.

“Less ruffled, then.”

“We’re quite unruffled,” said Anna-Rose.

“Well, you don’t look it, and you don’t sound like it.  But as this is important I’d be glad to resume the discussion, say, to-morrow.  I suggest we spend to-day exploring the neighbourhood and steadying our minds—­”

“Our minds are perfectly steady, thank you.”

“—­and to-morrow we’ll have another go at this question.  I haven’t told you all my plan yet”—­Mr. Twist hadn’t had time to inform them of his wish to become their guardian, owing to the swiftness with which he had been engulfed in their indignation,—­“but whether you approve of it or not, what is quite certain is that we can’t stay on at the hotel much longer.”

“Because it’s so dear?”

“Oh, it isn’t so much that,—­the proprietor is a friend of mine, or anyhow he very well might be—­”

“It looks very dear,” said Anna-Rose, visions of their splendid bedroom and bathroom rising before her.  They too had slept in silken beds, and the taps in their bathroom they had judged to be pure gold.

“And it’s because we can’t afford to be in a dear place spending money,” said Anna-Felicitas, “that it’s so important we should find a salaried position in a school without loss of time.”

“And it’s because we can’t afford reckless squandering that we ought to start looking for such a situation at once” said Anna-Rose.

“Not to-day,” said Mr. Twist firmly, for he wouldn’t give up the hope of getting them, once they were used to it, to come round to his plan.  “To-day, this one day, we’ll give ourselves up to enjoyment.  It’ll do us all good.  Besides, we don’t often get to a place like this, do we.  And it has taken some getting to, hasn’t it.”

He rose from his rock and offered his hand to help them off theirs.

“To-day enjoyment,” he said, “to-morrow business.  I’m crazy,” he added artfully, “to see what the country is like away up in those hills.”