Education: Poison-Ivied Walls

As almost every Briton knows, the school called St. Trinian's is a strange, spooky, neo-Gothic institution based somewhere in England. At St. Trinian's, gargoylish women in high-collared dresses and spindle-shanked girls in mussy black tunics go blithely through term after term of arson, mayhem and murder. For sheer energy, the St. Trinian's girl has no match.

She has an avid taste for "how-to" books, e.g., How to Shrink a Human Head, is extremely inventive in lab ("Smashing!—Now pass the bat's blood"), once thought up a ripping plan for blowing up Herbert Morrison and the Houses of Parliament on Guy Fawkes Day.

Sometimes she...