I hadn’t said anything all the time Father was speaking, and I hadn’t cried at all, because I wouldn’t let myself. As soon as he’d gone I ran away to our bedroom. I couldn’t hide in my secret trouble place, because I didn’t feel that I could ever bear to go into the bathroom again. The worst of it was our door doesn’t lock, for Humphrey lost the key once when we were wicked gaolers of the Tower, but I barricaded it with chairs. Then, of course, I did cry. I cried awfully until everything got quite dizzy. I was still crying when Humphrey climbed in at the window, but I seemed too miserable to mind. He was most nice though. He didn’t talk, but he stroked my hand and shoved his big peppermint into it, just as if there hadn’t been any horrid missionarying. Then, when I didn’t move, he said, “Father won’t go on being cwoss;” and I said, “I wish I were dead.” So I did. It’s a horrid feeling to have. All of a sudden Humph said, “Why don’t you ’splain it was _my_ dirty toe-nails?” I just sobbed out, “I don’t know.” It was very sensible, really, what Humph said, but I was too unhappy to see that; besides, I was thinking more about the other things Father had scolded me about. I said, “I don’t think I’m better than other people, I don’t, I don’t! I think I’m a beast, and horrible.” Humph said, “No, you’re not.” Then he wagged his head, and went away. The part that comes next I didn’t know at the time, of course, but Humph told me about it afterwards. He _was_ nice; he can be most ’straordinarily sensible sometimes, though you’d never think it. He went straight to the study where the German gentleman was sitting, and said, “It was _my_ toe-nails.” The German gentleman jumped up very quickly, but Humph went on telling him. He said, “You see, I don’t scrub mine very much because it tickles. My sister didn’t even know about yours.” He talked in German, because that’s one of the funny things about Humph, he likes it. It was lucky though, because we found out afterwards it always pleased the German gentleman to hear his own language. Then Humph pulled off his shoes and stockings to show his feet. It sounds a naughty thing to do in the drawing-room, but I don’t think it really was. The German gentleman looked very astonished, but he didn’t look cross, Humphrey told me. At last he said, “_So_; but why was it written out and pushed under the door like that?” “Because I stop up my ears and won’t listen when she speaks to me,” Humph explained. He went on and told the German gentleman all about the missionarying, and the gentleman seemed very interested. Then at the end Humph said, “But my sister is starving; she didn’t eat hardly nothing for bweakfast, and no biscuits at eleven, and she won’t even suck my peppermint. I think she’ll soon be dead and it’ll be you that’s done it.”