I said “Yes,” and I began to think of a game that minute. “I’ve got a lovely one out of the book Mother has been reading to us,” I said. “I’ll be the Sweep Grimes, and you’ll be little Tom. I shall always shout at you with horrid words and beat you dreadfully and send you up the most difficult wiggly chimneys.” “And light straw under if I don’t go up quick enough.” Ted jigged up and down, so that I could hardly brush his hair; he hugged me all of himself. Humph and I get excited over our games sometimes, but I don’t think we ever were so excited as Ted got. I believe he never thought about anything else. He used to ask me to come up and say good-night to him, because of course he goes to bed earlier than us, and then he’d hug me and whisper, “Fräulein doesn’t know, but I haven’t really had my broth but just a mouldy crust, and I’m not really wearing my new pyjamas but just old rags, and this isn’t really a bed at all but just a heap of dirty straw;” and I’d say in an awful Grimesy voice, “Be quiet, else I’ll kick you out to sleep in the street.” All the same, it was through this game that Teddy got into such trouble. One afternoon it was very cold and there was a horrid wind, so Fräulein said that Teddy had better not come for a walk with the rest of us, because of getting croupy. “I will lend you my German picture-book, with the pictures that move, as a treat,” she said, “and you must be very good.” Then she asked Jane to give an eye to him every now and then. We hate going out for walks, it’s so dull, and this one was particularly horrid. We were very glad to get back, and we rushed to the schoolroom fire. “Why, where’s Teddy?” Fräulein said. “He must have gone to the dining-room.” He wasn’t in the dining-room either, nor in the kitchen. Jane’s sister had come to tea (the one who has got a beautiful tooth that unscrews), and they were all talking and laughing very loud. “Where’s Master Teddy?” Fräulein said. “Oh, he was looking at a book not a minute ago as good as gold, Miss,” Jane said, and went on talking. The servants do get rather different when Mother and Father are away, though Jane is most kind. Last Sunday she let me warm the sort of scissors thing for her that she curls her hair with, and she has promised to lend it to me one day. It will be lovely for tortures. Fräulein began calling, “Teddy, Teddy,” but he didn’t answer. She went and looked in all the bedrooms and seemed to get quite frightened. “_Ach Herzliebchen!_” she kept muttering, “if harm should have befallen thee and _die Mutter_ away.” I wondered if he could have started paying calls like Violet! At last I opened the drawing-room door. We hadn’t thought of looking there directly because we never use the room when Mother is away. And what I saw surprised me so that I stood quite still.