‘Come in, Uncle Paul. _Do_ stay. You _must_ stay,’ came the chorus, while Mlle. Fleury half smiled, half frowned at him across the table. ‘Here’s just the stodgy kind of cake you like, with jam _and_ honey!’ ‘Well,’ he said hesitatingly, as though he scorned such things, while Mademoiselle poured out a cup, and the children piled up a plate for him. He stayed, as it were, by chance, and a minute later was as earnestly engaged with the cake and tea as if he had come with that special purpose. ‘It’s all very well done,’ was his secret thought. ‘It’s exactly the way Mrs. Tompkyns manages all her most important affairs.’ ‘Nous avons réunion après,’ Jonah informed the governess presently with a very grave face. The young woman glanced interrogatively at Paul. ‘Oui, oui,’ he said in his Canadian French, ‘c’est vrai. Réunion régulaire.’ ‘Mais qu’elle idée, donc!’ ‘Il est le président,’ said Toby indignantly, pointing with a jam sandwich. ‘Voilá vous êtes!’ he exclaimed. ‘There you are! Je suis le président!’ and he helped himself to more cake as though by accident. For five seconds Mlle. Fleury kept her face. Then, in spite of herself, her lips parted and a row of white teeth appeared. ‘Meester Reevairs, you spoil them,’ she said, ‘and I approve it not. Mais, voyons donc! Quelles maniéres!’ she added as Sambo and Pouf passed from Toby’s lap on to the table and began to sniff at the water cress.... ‘Non, ça c’est _trop_ fort!’ She leaned across to smack them back into propriety. ‘Abominable,’ Paul cried, ‘abominable tout à fait.’ ‘Alwaze when you come such things ’appen.’ ‘Pas mon faute,’ he said, helping to catch Pouf. ‘They are deeficult enough without that you make them more,’ she said. ‘Uncle Paul doesn’t know his genders,’ cried Jonah; ‘hooray!’ ‘Ma faute,’ he corrected himself, pronouncing it ‘fote.’ Then Toby, struggling with Smoke, whose nose she was trying to force into a saucer of milk which he did not want, upset the saucer all over her dress and the table, splashing one and all. Jonah sprang up and knocked his chair over backwards in the excitement. Mrs. Tompkyns, wakening from her sleep upon the piano stool, leaped on to the notes of the open keyboard with a horrible crash. A pandemonium reigned, all talking, laughing, shouting at once, and the governess scolding. Then Paul trod on a kitten’s tail under the table and extraordinary shrieks were heard, whereupon Jonah, stooping to discover their cause, bumped his head and began to cry. Moving forward to comfort him, Paul’s sleeve caught in the spout of the tea-pot and it fell with a clatter among the cups and plates, sending the sugar-tongs spinning into the air, and knocking the milk-jug sideways so that a white sea flooded the whole tray and splashed up with white spots on to Paul’s cheeks.