"I can't believe it," said the Doctor. "The rocking-horse's nose couldn't turn up, it was the purest Grecian, modelled from the Elgin marbles. Perhaps it was the heat that did it, though. However, you seem to have got through your troubles very well, Master Deordie. I wish poor Tiny were at the end of her task." "So do I," said Deordie ruefully. "But I tell you what I've been thinking, Doctor. Nurse is always knagging at us, and we're always in rows of one sort or another, for doing this, and not doing that, and leaving our things about. But, you know, it's a horrid shame, for there are plenty of servants, and I don't see why we should be always bothering to do little things, and--" "Oh! come to the point, please," said the Doctor; "you do go round the square so, in telling your stories, Deordie. What have you been thinking of?" "Well," said Deordie, who was as good tempered as he was slow, "the other day Nurse shut me up in the back nursery for borrowing her scissors and losing them; but I'd got 'Grimm' inside one of my knickerbockers, so when she locked the door, I sat down to read. And I read the story of the Shoemaker and the little Elves who came and did his work for him before he got up; and I thought it would be so jolly if we had some little Elves to do things instead of us." "That's what Tommy Trout said," observed the Doctor. "Who's Tommy Trout?" asked Deordie. "Don't you know, Deor?" said Tiny. "It's the good boy who pulled the cat out of the what's-his-name. 'Who pulled her out? Little Tommy Trout.' "Is it the same Tommy Trout, Doctor? I never heard anything else about him except his pulling the cat out; and I can't think how he did that." "Let down the bucket for her, of course," said the Doctor. "But listen to me. If you will get that handkerchief done, and take it to your mother with a kiss, and not keep me waiting, I'll have you all to tea, and tell you the story of Tommy Trout." "This very night?" shouted Deordie. "This very night." "Every one of us?" inquired the young gentleman with rapturous incredulity. "Every one of you.--Now Tiny, how about that work?" "It's just done," said Tiny.--"Oh! Deordie, climb up behind, and hold back my hair, there's a darling, while I fasten off. Oh! Deor, you're pulling my hair out. Don't." "I want to make a pig-tail," said Deor. "You can't," said Tiny, with feminine contempt. "You can't plait. What's the good of asking boys to do anything? There! it's done at last. Now go and ask mother if we may go.--Will you let me come, doctor," she inquired, "if I do as you said?" "To be sure I will," he answered. "Let me look at you. Your eyes are swollen with crying. How can you be such a silly little goose?" "Did you never cry?" asked Tiny. "When I was your age? Well, perhaps so." "You've never cried since, surely," said Tiny. The Doctor absolutely blushed. "What do you think?" said he.