And that reminds me. Often Grown-ups "give it" to their children for the very identical things they used to do themselves when young. There is a friend of father's down at Dumfries whom he calls Mr. Massa. And once we bribed Mr. Massa to tell us all about when father was young--he was his earliest and dearest friend--though, by his telling, father pounded him shamefully and unmercifully for nothing at all, even after they had vowed eternal friendship. And do you know, the things that father did when he was a boy--well, he would thrash Hugh John and Sir Toady for _now_! But I expect that all fathers and most mothers were like that. When _I_ am a mother, I shan't be. Because, having kept a Diary, I shall only have to take it out and see how I felt. Don't you think that is a first-rate idea? Besides, if it is printed, as Mr. Dignus says that it will be, it is bound to be true, and I shall have to believe it. Oh, just won't my children have a good time! Also Hugh John's. But Sir Toady Lion says he isn't going to have any--being married is ever such a swot, and children are all little pigs. Well, _he_ ought to know. Oh, about this Mr. Massa? He told us some splendid things about father--how he stood on the top of Thrieve Castle with a stone in one hand and his watch in the other to measure the altitude, having just learned how. Only he forgot, and let go the wrong hand. _Smack_--went the watch on the grass about seventy feet below! And there was he left standing with the stone in his hand. But the watch was ticking cheerfully away when they picked it up, and it is that very same old nursery watch that is hung up there now, and tells us when it is time _not_ to get up. I don't think I ever knew what it was to have a true friend with a good memory till that moment. And as for the boys and me, we never thought we should like any of father's friends so much. But Mr. Massa told us more things that we can cast up to him in time of need than we would ever have wormed out of father himself in a century. Funny how close people get about some things when they get older. Oh, I wish I had been born my own little girl. Then I _should_ have been properly brought up! However, that is not my fault. Hugh John says that being naughty is just according as you look at it. Big Folks' job is to make us behave, so that we are as little of a nuisance to them as possible. _Our_ business to get as much fun as we can out of life without getting in the way of the Grown-ups. All their "Don't do this's" and "You mustn't do that's" are just warnings not to give them trouble. Moral (according to Hugh John), "Give as little trouble as possible to Grown-ups. And they will let you do pretty much as you want to." He says that acts first-rate at school. Toe the line with the masters, and then if you _do_ "whale" your fellow-pupil, no questions are asked. The only way to be a bad little boy in peace and quiet is to be a good little boy so far as work is concerned!