On the whole, the presentation of the Christmas gifts passed off satisfactorily. The only definite display of jealousy occurred over the diver's equipment given to Harold, which was more than Bertram notwithstanding his own fireman's outfit could suppress. "I'll swop with you, if you like," he began mildly enough. But Harold clutched the diver's mask to his breast and shrank from the proposal. "I think you'd rather be a fireman," Bertram persisted. "Anybody can be a diver, can't they, V?" Viola left her doll in a state of semi-nudity and advanced to her brother's support. "You'd look much nicer as a fireman, Harold," she said, coaxingly. "I wish I could be a fireman." "Well, you can if you like," he answered, sullenly, looking round with a hunted expression for his mother, who unluckily for her son was in another part of the house arguing with Mrs. Worfolk about the sauce for the plum-pudding. "But wouldn't you rather wear a pretty brass helmet?" Viola went on. "No, I wouldn't," said Harold, desperately wrapping himself in the rubber tubes that was so temptingly conspicuous a portion of his equipment. "Oh, you little idiot," Viola burst out, impatiently. "What's the good of your dressing up as a diver? In those goggles you always look like a diver." "I don't, do I, Frida?" Harold implored. Now Frida was happy with her dolls'-house; she had no reason to be loyal to Harold, who had always treated her shamefully; but the spirit of the squaw rose in her breast and she felt bound to defend the wigwam against outside criticism. Therefore she assured Harold that in ordinary life he did not look in the least like a diver. "Well," Bertram announced, throwing aside the last pretense of respecting property, "V and I want that diver's dress, because we often act _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_." "Well, I can act _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_ too." "No you can't because you haven't read it." "Yes, I have." "What a bung!" exclaimed Bertram. "You've only read _A Journey to the Center of the Earth_ and _Round the World in Eighty Days_." Then he remembered Frida's attitude. "Look here, if you take the fireman's uniform you can set fire to Frida's house." Frida yelled her refusal. "And put it out, you little idiot," Bertram added. "And put it out," Viola echoed. Frida rushed to her mother. "Mother, mother, don't let them burn my dolls'-house! Mother, you won't, will you? Bertram wants to burn it." "Naughty Bertram!" said Edith. "But he's only teasing you, darling." "Good lummy, what a sneak," Bertram commented, bitterly, to his sister. Viola eyed her cousin with the scorn of an Antigon. "Beastly," she murmured. "Come on, Bertram, you don't want the diver's dress!" "Rather not. And anyway it won't work." "It will. It will," cried Harold, passionately. "I'm going to practice in a water-butt the first fine day we have."