“Mrs Pobjoy’s always delighted to see new faces, aren’t you, ma’m? Ah, ha! A regular butterfly. A regular butterfly. What do you say, Pobjoy?” and Mr Papingay gave the painted figure of Mr Pobjoy a dig in the ribs, then turned from one to the other of his painted visitors chattering and laughing, and shaking his head. “And here’s little Maudie. Well, and how is Maudie to-day?” and he stooped and playfully flicked the cheeks of a fat-faced little girl with yellow hair and a pink frock who was leaning against a painted sideboard. “Here’s a little girl to see you, Maudie. You’ll like that, won’t you?” He turned to the children. “I’m afraid she’s rather peevish this evening. She is sometimes. It’s best to take no notice—she’ll come round presently. Here’s Mr Waffer, here by the window—I won’t introduce you to him just at present, he’s probably just got an inspiration I should think, by the way he stands absorbed in the scenery outside. He’s a poet, you know.... But come over here and let Lizzie and her sister see you.” He bundled away across the room followed by the two children. “I say, Molly,” whispered Jack, “do you think we should see the front of Mr Waffer through the window if we went outside and looked up. I _would_ like to see his face.” “Why?” asked Molly with interest. “Because I don’t believe he has one. Do remind me to look as we go out,” said Jack. “This,” the old man was saying as they came up to him, “is Lizzie and here’s her sister. Very bright girls, both of them,” he added in an undertone so that the green-frocked Lizzie should not hear. And so he moved on introducing them to one after the other, and it began to look as if he would never tear himself away from the visitors room. At length Molly told him that they would not be able to stay much longer as they wished to get out of the Orange Wood before darkness came down. “Oh, you mustn’t go yet,” he protested. “I’ve got a lot more to show you yet.... Ah! and that reminds me.... But first you must come and see my kitchen arrangements; they are absolutely first-rate; and then I have something very exciting to tell you.” He nodded his head mysteriously. Jack and Molly exchanged significant glances. As they followed him downstairs it struck them that although he was introducing them to everything and everybody in his house, yet he had never troubled to introduce himself. He had forgotten about that. He led the way to the kitchen, and the children noticed, in passing, a servant carrying a tray, painted on the passage wall a few yards from the kitchen door. (“How tiresome it must be for her never to get any farther,” thought Molly, but she didn’t say anything.)