“Oh, there’s our very own house,” cried Rosamund at last; “we shall be safe there.” She was surprised as well as pleased to find their own house inside the town they had built. So they ran in, and into the library, and there was the bureau and the castle they had built, and it was all small and quite the proper size. But when they looked out of the window it was not their own street, but the one they had built; they could see two volumes of the “Beauties of Literature” and the head of Rebecca in the house opposite, and down the street was the Mausoleum they had built after the pattern given in the red and yellow book that goes with the All-Wool bricks. It was all very confusing. Suddenly, as they stood looking out of the windows, they heard a shouting, and there were the blue soldiers coming along the street by twos, and when the Captain got opposite their house he called out— “Fabian! Rosamund! come down!” And they had to, for they were very much frightened. Then the Captain said— “We have taken this town, and you are our prisoners. Do not attempt to escape, or I don’t know what will happen to you.” The children explained that they had built the town, so they thought it was theirs; but the captain said very politely— “That doesn’t follow at all. It’s our town now. And I want provisions for my soldiers.” “We haven’t any,” said Fabian, but Rosamund nudged him, and said, “Won’t the soldiers be very fierce if they are hungry?” The Blue Captain heard her, and said— “You are quite right, little girl. If you have any food, produce it. It will be a generous act, and may stop any unpleasantness. My soldiers _are_ very fierce. Besides,” he added in a lower tone, speaking behind his hand, “you need only feed the soldiers in the usual way.” When the children heard this their minds were made up. “If you do not mind waiting a minute,” said Fabian, politely, “I will bring down any little things I can find.” Then he took his tongs, and Rosamund took the poker, and they opened the drawer where the raisins and figs and dried fruits were—for everything in the library in the town was just the same as in the library at home—and they carried them out into the big square where the Captain had drawn up his blue regiment. And here the soldiers were fed. I suppose you know how tin soldiers are fed? But children learn so little at school nowadays that I daresay you don’t, so I will tell you. You just put a bit of the fig or raisin, or whatever it is, on the soldier’s tin bayonet—or his sword, if he is a cavalry man—and you let it stay on till you are tired of playing at giving the soldiers rations, and then of course _you eat it for him_. This was the way in which Fabian and Rosamund fed the starving blue soldiers. But when they had done so, the soldiers were as hungry as ever. Which only shows that soldiers are an ungrateful lot, and it is idle to try and make their lives better and brighter.