We hurried up through the garden, and met Mr. Hobbs, who stopped us, and said severely: "Didn't you hear the clock strike?" "No," said Mollie. "We were busy talking. I'm so sorry, Mr. Hobbs, I won't be late again." "You said that yesterday," said Mr. Hobbs. "And last week I caught you out here when it was nearly six. The next time it happens I'll give you a great big box of chocolate creams, and see that you eat them all." The explanation of this awful threat, as I learnt later, was that the gardens of the rich were given up to those who looked after them, and their friends, after certain hours, and it was not permitted to their owners to enter them. As we went across the lawn, Sir Herbert was stringing up the tennis net, and two of the maids were standing talking to him. All three of them looked at us with displeasure as we scuttled by, and Mollie said: "I shall catch it for this when I get in." FOOTNOTES: [15] He said that he didn't like playing with girls. [16] It was a plantain. [17] The contempt for pretty clothes amongst the girl children of Culbut was a question of form. See page 52. [18] The Lady Cynthia Maxted, younger daughter of the Earl of Blueberry by his marriage with Sarah, daughter of Giles Ploughshare, Esq. [19] The public parks of Culbut, as well as the semi-private ones (see chapter xiv), were entirely closed to the rich. This had not always been so, but an agitation had been made by the mothers of the poor children who played there some years before, and the Municipality had legislated in their favour. Edward Perry considered this a very bad business. CHAPTER XI It was quite time for me to go and get ready to join Mr. Perry. Indeed, it was more than time, as I found when I went upstairs, and was greeted by Lord Arthur with the remark that if I wasn't in the hall ready for the carriage when it came round I should hear about it. But I found him a good deal more anxious to be friendly than before, and presently discovered that the reason for this was that it had got about in the household that I was a "Highlander." I did not contradict the report, but refrained from giving him any information about where I really had come from, for one thing because I didn't think he would believe me, and for another because I thought it might not be a bad thing to be looked upon as the altogether superior being which the dwellers in that remote part of Upsidonia were evidently considered to be. Fortunately, I was just ready to step into the carriage when it came round, and thus escaped an expression of censure from the coachman, who drove off quickly towards Culbut.