'I don't like society people,' put in Harold from the sofa, where he was sprawling at full length--a sight the daylight hours would have blushed to witness. 'There were some of 'em here this afternoon, when you two had gone off to the station. O, and I found a dead mouse on the lawn, and I wanted to skin it, but I wasn't sure I knew how, by myself; and they came out into the garden, and patted my head--I wish people wouldn't do that--and one of 'em asked me to pick her a flower. Don't know why she couldn't pick it herself; but I said, "All right, I will if you'll hold my mouse." But she screamed, and threw it away; and Augustus (the cat) got it, and ran away with it. I believe it was really his mouse all the time, 'cos he'd been looking about as if he had lost something, so I wasn't angry with _him_. But what did _she_ want to throw away my mouse for?' [Illustration: '_The procession passing solemnly across the moon-lit Blue Room_'] 'You have to be careful with mice,' reflected Edward; 'they're such slippery things. Do you remember we were playing with a dead mouse once on the piano, and the mouse was Robinson Crusoe, and the piano was the island, and somehow Crusoe slipped down inside the island, into its works, and we couldn't get him out, though we tried rakes and all sorts of things, till the tuner came. And that wasn't till a week after, and then----' Here Charlotte, who had been nodding solemnly, fell over into the fender; and we realised that the wind had dropped at last, and the house was lapped in a great stillness. Our vacant beds seemed to be calling to us imperiously; and we were all glad when Edward gave the signal for retreat. At the top of the staircase Harold unexpectedly turned mutinous, insisting on his right to slide down the banisters in a free country. Circumstances did not allow of argument; I suggested frog's-marching instead, and accordingly frog's-marched he was, the procession passing solemnly across the moon-lit Blue Room, with Harold horizontal and limply submissive. Snug in bed at last, I was just slipping off into slumber when I heard Edward explode, with chuckle and snort. 'By Jove!' he said; 'I forgot all about it. The new tutor's sleeping in the Blue Room!' 'Lucky he didn't wake up and catch us,' I grunted drowsily; and, without another thought on the matter, we both sank into well-earned repose. Next morning, coming down to breakfast braced to grapple with fresh adversity, we were surprised to find our garrulous friend of the previous day--he was late in making his appearance--strangely silent and (apparently) pre-occupied. Having polished off our porridge, we ran out to feed the rabbits, explaining to them that a beast of a tutor would prevent their enjoying so much of our society as formerly.