"I'll tell the King! I'll tell the King! I'll tell the King!" and he buried his face in the road again, and simplee kicked. But Tiny just cried back anyhow, "Dummind if you do," for he knew he was all right: for if when you are Commander-in-Chief you disguise as a nigger-boy, you mustn't mind if you do get spanked. Besides Tiny knew that St Jack had been growing so old of late, that even the good King had begun to notice it. And Tiny knew _that_ because the Queen who was a bit of a blab, honest soul, had told him in secret that morning, when he went to the Castle for the washing; which was always his little job. For the Queen does all the washing in That Country. A few minutes later as Baby came panting up the lane with Tiny's boat, which he was going to sail on the Pond against the Colonel's gull, she found the Commander-in-Chief sitting in the middle of the path, fiddling his nose about between his fingers, and blubbing rather. And when she saw how muddy his nose was, and how he fiddled it, she ran up with her eyes round-wide, crying, "O, you poor little thing!--What _have_ they been doing to you?--Let me wipe your nose for you." Then the Commander-in-Chief answered very brave, as he leaned back on his hands, with his nose up for Baby to do, "Why, I was comin up the lane, when all of a sudden--pop! bang! They set on me--ten hundud times ten hundud of um. But I beat um off--and I killed um all." And he bubbled his eyes and whispered--"There was some true live blood." Then Baby whistled as she did his nose with her handkerchief, and said, "Strikes me, you are the bravest in all the world--only Tiny." But when the Commander-in-Chief heard that, he slapped Baby's hand away, and scrambled to his feet, and bowed up and down with a sort of a smile, saying, "Thank-_ku_," and went away down the lane with his hump up high: for it only rose when he was in a temper. 39 But St Jack was not the only one who was growing old in That Country about now. For the Others, who had never been young, were aging very rapidly, because of Phyllis, who scolded them when they didn't work, and cuffed them when they did. So one evening when Phyllis had run down to little old Lollypop for some fruit for supper (for you have pretty well all fruit in the summer in That Country) the Others came and stood in a row before Baby on the lawn, and said, "Please, 'M," and the rest, like they do in Abroad; and let go a tear they had got ready. So when Phyllis ran back up the drive, Baby peeped through the golden bush and called, "Phyllis." Then Phyllis came, with the great basket of cherries on her head. And Baby stood by the golden bush, and pulled a leaf to pieces, and said, very grave and sad, "Is it true?" So Phyllis cocked her nose, and answered, "Some is, Miss; most ain't," which is usually the way with stories from folk in Abroad. Then Baby turned her face away, and said,