Until those last three days Jeremy behaved like an angel—that is, he listened to Aunt Amy and washed his hands when she told him to; he did not tease his little sister Barbara, nor hide Helen’s hair ribbons; he allowed Mary to go walking with him and gave Miss Jones a present when she returned from her holiday. He felt, perhaps, that as the holidays had begun so awfully with that terrible disaster of the Christmas presents, it was up to him to see that they ended properly. And then he was truly a good little boy who wanted things to go well and everyone to be comfortable and happy, only so strangely moods _would_ creep in, and desires and ambitions, and grown-up people would have such an amazing point of view about boys and misunderstand their natural impulses so dreadfully—what he meant was that if he were grown up and had a boy “he wouldn’t be such an ass!” The trouble of these last three days all began by his suddenly remembering that he had never read his holiday task. He did not remember of himself, but was reminded by Bill Bartlett, whom he met in the High Street, who said that the last two days had been miserable for him by having to swot at his rotten holiday task and that he didn’t know anything about it now! Jeremy had completely forgotten his. He hurried home and dragged it forth from its deserted corner. “The Talisman: A Tale of the Crusades,” by Sir Walter Scott, Bart. It was a horrible-looking book with a dark green cover, no pictures, and rows of notes at the end. Jeremy was not as yet a very great reader of anything, being slow and lazy about it and very eager to skip the difficult words. His favourite two books were “Robinson Crusoe” and “The Swiss Family Robinson,” simply because, in those books, people invented things in a jolly way. And after all, any day one might be on a desert island, and it was useful to know what to do. Of “Sir Walter Scott, Bart.,” he had never in his life heard, nor did he wish to hear of him. Nevertheless, something must be done. Old Thompson took holiday tasks very seriously indeed. Jeremy’s report last term had not been a very good one, and father’s eye was upon him. His first idea was that he would get Uncle Samuel to tell him the story; but when he showed his uncle the book, that gentleman waved his paint-brush in the air and said that “Walter was a fine old gentleman who died game, but a rotten writer, and it was a shame to make kids wade through his abominable prose.” There was, then, no hope here. Jeremy looked at the book, read half a page, and then threw it at Hamlet.