‘Not today. One lot of triplets though. I keep a separate page for them, and there were two still-borns yesterday. One mustn’t expect too much, you know.’
‘Now George and Mabel,’ said Paul, ‘if you are quite ready let’s go, shall we? There isn’t much time, really, before lunch.’
Wendy looked at Christopher Robin and they both giggled. They were not, as yet, accustomed to their new names, and thought that Paul, though both amiable and entertaining, was undoubtedly a little mad.
Paul carefully replaced a volume of Lady Maria’s journal behind the radiator, a practice that had but little meaning since Lady Bobbin, for whose deception it had been invented, never came near the schoolroom by any chance.
‘What story are you going to tell us today?’ asked Wendy as they started out.
‘Please, Mr Fisher, tell us a story about animals.’
‘A true story about animals, please, Mr Fisher.’
Yesterday’s ‘story’, a homily on the life history of eels, had not really gone with much of a swing, and it was felt that a true story would be preferable to one which he had palpably invented himself.
‘Well, let me think,’ said Paul. ‘I don’t know many stories about animals. What kind of animal?’
‘Any kind. Please, Mr Fisher. You told us a lovely one yesterday,’ said Christopher Robin encouragingly.
‘I really don’t know any,’ said Paul, at his wits’ end. ‘Unless you’d like to hear one that I read in Country Life the other day. That was supposed to be true, I believe.’
‘What’s Country Life?’
‘It’s a paper your Aunt Gloria takes in.’
‘I know,’ said Wendy in tones of superiority, and added in a stage whisper: ‘Christopher Robin can’t read, you know, so of course papers aren’t very interesting to him.’
‘Pig,’ said Christopher Robin. ‘I can read. Anyway, you –’
Paul had been treated to arguments of this kind before, and hastily said: ‘I’ll tell you the story then, if you’ll be quiet. A man was walking across a farmyard –’
‘A farmer?’ asked Wendy, ‘or a labourer?’
‘If you interrupt I shan’t go on. The man who wrote this story to Country Life – I don’t know who he may have been – was walking across a farmyard when he saw two rats running along in front of him. He threw a stick which he had in his hand at the first rat and killed it dead. To his great surprise the second rat, instead of running away, stood quite still as though it were waiting for something. The man thought this was so odd that he went over to look at it, and when he got quite near he saw that it was stone blind and had a straw in its mouth. The rat he had killed had been leading it along by the straw, you see, and the poor blind one thought it had stopped to have a drink or something, I suppose, and was just patiently waiting there for it to go on.’
‘Well?’ said Wendy after a pause.
‘That’s the end of the story.’
‘But what did the man do with the blind rat?’
‘I don’t know. He didn’t say in Country Life.’
‘I should have kept it for a pet,’ said Christopher Robin, ‘and led it about on a straw.’
‘I should love a dear little blind rat,’ said Wendy, and added in a contemplative voice: ‘I sometimes wish I were blind you know, so that I needn’t see my tooth water after I’ve spat it.’
‘I know what,’ said Christopher Robin, ‘let’s pretend you’re a blind rat, Wendy. Shut your eyes, you see, and put this straw in your mouth, and I’ll put the other end of it in mine, and I’ll lead you along by it.’
That evening Lady Brenda said to Paul: ‘I think it is so kind of you to take my wee things out for walks (I’m afraid they must bore you rather, don’t they?) but – please don’t mind me saying this – don’t you think that game you taught them with the straw is perhaps just the least little bit unhygienic? Of course if the straw could be sterilized I wouldn’t mind, but you see one can’t be certain where it came from, and I am so frightened always of T.B. So I’ve strictly forbidden them to play it any more, I hope you won’t be angry; it’s too sweet of you to bother with them,’ and with a vague smile she drifted away.
Héloïse Potts took Squibby Almanack for a ride. She did this mainly in order to annoy Bobby, because she knew that she would be fearfully bored by Squibby before the day was over. They went, in the duchess’s black Rolls-Royce, to visit Bunch Tarradale, whose ancestral home, Cracklesford Castle, was some thirty miles away, in Warwickshire.
Bunch was more than pleased to see them, and quickly led off Squibby to the downstairs lavatory so that they could have a good gossip.
‘Have you heard from Biggy?’ said Bunch, with more than a hint of malice in his voice. ‘He’s in love again.’
‘Not again! Who is it this time?’
‘A girl called Susan Alveston. However, she’s refused him, which is all to the good. Very ugly and stupid I hear she is, and only sixteen.’
‘Biggy always likes them young though, doesn’t he? How d’you know she’s ugly and stupid?’
‘He said so in his letter. He said “You might not call her strictly beautiful, but she has a most fascinating and expressive little face.” That means she must be ugly, doesn’t it, and all girls of sixteen are stupid. All the ones I’ve met are, anyhow. Besides, she must be, to refuse Biggy.’
‘You seem to think that girls only have one idea in their heads, and that is to marry a lord as soon as they can.’
‘Well, isn’t that true?’
‘I have my ideals,’ said Squibby.
‘And have you heard from Maydew?’ continued Bunch. ‘I had a picture postcard saying everything had turned out very satisfactorily.’
‘So did I. Balham is evidently a success. What a sensible man Maydew is, to be sure, so untrammelled by
