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"Hardly sporting There’s plenty more of you scrappers than there isus as gentlemen, we don’t have to behave like ’em, do we?"
"As if you kne"
Soap made a perfect bow, precisely the kind due to a viscount "How do you do? The name is Phineas B Crow"
Goodness, if Soap didn’t sound exactly as if he were a gentle the accent Sophronia wondered where he’d learned it in the first place
Shocked into an instinctual reaction, Felix bowed back "Felix Golborne, Viscount Mersey"
"Lord Mersey, I’ve heard of you" Soap looked over to where Sophronia skulked
And he kno to shorten the na Soap’s gaze rest on Sophronia, "but I hadn’t heard of you"
"Some of us kno to keep secrets" With that, Soap ostentatiously returned the valve to Sophronia
Felix colored So he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone it’s a guidance valve? Or is he embarrassed to catch Soap and me on terms of any intimacy?
"Be careful," whispered Sophronia to Soap
The sootie winked and turned back to Felix
The boys squared off Felix stood about half a head shorter than Soap, but then most people did His clothes fit him perfectly, while Soap seemed to have been shoveled badly into his, rists and ankles sticking out
"What can we possibly do for you, Lord Mersey?" asked Soap
"I have no business with you"
"Good thing, too We have enough bother keeping this ship afloat We don’t have time to pander to layabout toffs when there’s real work to do"
Felix ignored this "I wanted to look in on Miss Temminnick"
Soap said, "Well, she has had a nu"
"Oh, has she indeed?"
Soap declined to elaborate As Felix had voiced his interest outright, the taller boy could not delay him further
"Miss Sophronia," he said, "you have a visitor," as if her were her butler "This boy wants to see you" He said it as though Felix were years his junior
Felix turned the full force of his char the back of an impeccable frock coat to Soap "It is an odd place for us to meet, Ria, my dove"
Soap tensed
Sophronia supposed she ame "Very well, ed and your cravat gone gray; hoill you survive such travesties?"
"For the pleasure of your glorious coes"
"Do they always talk like this?" Soap asked Di"
"I shouldn’t let it worry you, Mr Soap She’s only practicing"
Sophronia looked away fro to be a rake and toying with my poor, weak heart" But even as she said it, she was forced to face up to the fact that this was probably a lie Felix was interested in courting her He’d made no illusions otherwise And so, unfortunately, was Soap What a pickle Maybe if I ignore their overtures, the n arden is beautiful"
"And as full of dung," replied Sophronia without e"
Soap was looking equal parts impressed and disturbed by this banter He added, "Aside which, don’t you know, Lord Mersey, Miss Sophronia doesn’t have a heart?"
Sophronia didn’t show it, but the re She was very fond of Soap She didn’t want him to think her cold She said to Felix, "My lord, how did you follow h to be wary He’s only an evil genius in training He shouldn’t be able to track encer
"I need to know, my lord It could cost me my life soain, I’ cheeky "I told hi and the going to hi to put a word in with the headmaster of Bunson’s forMaster Lefoux and I have struck a bargain," said Felix "I’ll can for his admittance to Bunson’s, and he’d tell ested the fact that Felix, evidently, didn’t know that Vieve was fe this to hi Sophronia’s whereabouts It was best to keep inforht becoe And, in the end, there was no real har her
One question did re?"
"I ht"
"You knohere irl’s boudoir was sacred!
Felix issued her a crooked s school before"
"I see Well, thank you, Vieve"
Vieve tried to explain "I can’t lark about here forever I’ve been thinking Bunson’s is a better place for me"
Sophronia handed her traitorous friend back the mini-prototype "Guidance valve," sheshe’d heard the name
"What about Professor Shri to the fact that, as an old acquaintance of Professor Lefoux’s, Shriured that out yet May need your help to reassign hi to both Di luether with a boy "Wait a e with arace to look eement If I leave for Bunson’s, I won’t need the obstructor anymore, will I?"