‘This,’ said Punch, ‘means things, and now I will know all about everything in all the world.’ He read till the light failed, not understanding a tithe of the meaning, but tantalised by glimpses of new worlds hereafter to be revealed.

‘What is a ‘‘falchion”? What is a ‘‘e-wee lamb”? What is a ‘‘base ussurper”? What is a ‘‘verdant me- ad”?’ he demanded with flushed cheeks, at bedtime, of the astonished Aunty Rosa.

‘Say your prayers and go to sleep,’ she replied, and that was all the help Punch then or afterwards found at her hands in the new and delightful exercise of reading.

‘Aunty Rosa only knows about God and things like that,’ argued Punch. ‘Uncle Harry will tell me.’

The next walk proved that Uncle Harry could not help either; but he allowed Punch to talk, and even sat down on a bench to hear about the Griffin. Other walks brought other stories as Punch ranged farther afield, for the house held large store of old books that no one ever opened—from Frank Fairlegh in serial numbers, and the earlier poems of Tennyson, contributed anonymously to Sharpe’s Magazine, to ’62 Exhibition Catalogues, gay with colours and delightfully incomprehensible, and odd leaves of Gulliver’s Travels.

As soon as Punch could string a few pot-hooks together he wrote to Bombay, demanding by return of post ‘all the books in all the world.’ Papa could not comply with this modest indent, but sent Grimm’s Fairy Tales and a Hans Andersen. That was enough. If he were only left alone Punch could pass, at any hour he chose, into a land of his own, beyond reach of Aunty Rosa and her God, Harry and his teasements, and Judy’s claims to be played with.

‘Don’t disturve me, I’m reading. Go and play in the kitchen,’ grunted Punch. ‘Aunty Rosa lets you go there.’ Judy was cutting her second teeth and was fretful. She appealed to Aunty Rosa, who descended on Punch.

‘I was reading,’ he explained, ‘reading a book I want to read.’

‘You’re only doing that to show off,’ said Aunty Rosa. ‘But we’ll see. Play with Judy now, and don’t open a book for a week.’

Judy did not pass a very enjoyable playtime with Punch, who was consumed with indignation. There was a pettiness at the bottom of the prohibition which puzzled him.

‘It’s what I like to do,’ he said, ‘and she’s found out that and stopped me. Don’t cry, Ju—it wasn’t your fault—please don’t cry, or she’ll say I made you.’

Ju loyally mopped up her tears, and the two played in their nursery, a room in the basement and half underground, to which they were regularly sent after the mid-day dinner while Aunty Rosa slept. She drank wine—that is to say, something from a bottle in the cellaret—for her stomach’s sake, but if she did not fall asleep she would sometimes come into the nursery to see that the children were really playing. Now bricks, wooden hoops, ninepins, and chinaware cannot amuse for ever, especially when all Fairyland is to be won by the mere opening of a book, and, as often as not, Punch would be discovered reading to Judy or telling her interminable tales. That was an offence in the eyes of the law, and Judy would be whisked off by Aunty Rosa, while Punch was left to play alone, ‘and be sure that I hear you doing it.’

It was not a cheering employ, for he had to make a playful noise. At last, with infinite craft, he devised an arrangement whereby the table could be supported as to three legs on toy bricks, leaving the fourth clear to bring down on the floor. He could work the table with one hand and hold a book with the other. This he did till an evil day when Aunty Rosa pounced upon him unawares and told him that he was ‘acting a lie.’