Then he began to squeak with crying more than ever. “I was g--going to c--creep under the c--carriage-seat and be a st--stowboy on the ship. And c--come out at the place with b--black people. I’d g--got a c--crust of bread in my d--dressing-gown pocket all r--ready. Mother g--gone away for a m--million years.” Wasn’t that a good plan? I should never have thought Teddy could have invented anything so sensible. I said, “Did you make it all up yourself?” and he said, “Yes,” very pleased, because he saw that I admired it. What made me feel dreadful though, was that all these days I’d thought he didn’t care and was going to grow up like Nero. Just then we heard Fräulein calling, “Teddy, Teddy, where are you?” as if she were in a great state of mind. So I said we must come else she’d discover the secret place. We crawled out and I shut up the little door carefully. Then I shouted, “Teddy’s in here, Fräulein.” I thought that Fräulein would be cross, but she wasn’t; I suppose it was to sort of make up for Mother’s going, besides she’s nearly always nice to Teddy. She just laughed and said, “_Du böser Bube_; you have me so frightened.” She took hold of Ted’s hand and was taking him away to dress him, but he caught hold of me. “Molly get me up to-day,” he said. I _was_ pleased. You see it had often made me feel rather horrid Teddy’s being so much fonder of Fräulein than he is of me. Another thing I didn’t like was that when Teddy was a baby, a real baby I mean, I used to cuddle and nurse him heaps, but lately he’d said it was silly and that I didn’t do it to Humph. He wouldn’t even let me kiss him. It was when I was dressing Ted that I found out something. He was telling me more about his plan for going with Mother and how he had meant to wait hidden in the carriage until she got into the train, and then scramble under the seat of the train when she wasn’t looking. “You see I thinked I could do it, because everybody says I’m so small. You don’t call it a silly plan?” “No, it was a lovely plan,” I said. “I was ’fraid you call it silly. And if I think of lots and lots of lovely plans, will you soon, in three, eight, a million days let me play in the games with you and Humph?” “But you do sometimes.” “Yes, but you think I’m a bother.” I did feel horrid, because he is rather a bother, but we hadn’t meant him to find it out. “There’s nobody for me to play with,” he said, beginning to squeak again, “Violet’s always doing her dolls and Mother’s gone away for a million----” “We’ll have a new game, and there will be a real part for you, like Humph’s,” I said quickly. Teddy clapped his hands and jumped for joy. “And will you knock me about and tortoise me just like you do Humph?” He meant torture only he didn’t quite know the right word.