A Gallery of Children

by A. A. Milne

Mr. Banks played golf. He was a very active man, and he played more golf in an afternoon than anybody else at his club. Sometimes the friends he was playing with would stop for tea after hitting the ball only seventy-five times, but Mr. Banks would never stop until he had hit it a hundred and twenty times. He was that sort of man. You would have thought that they would have given him a prize for being so active, but they didn’t. They always gave it to the others. Almost everybody in the club was given a little silver cup except Mr. Banks. He used to feel very unhappy about it. Whenever he and Mrs. Banks went out to dinner with their friends, they would always see a silver cup on the table, and Mr. Binks (if that was the name of the friend) would explain to Mr. Banks how he had won the cup last Saturday, and Mrs. Binks would explain to Mrs. Banks how her husband had won it. And Mr. and Mrs. Banks would go home feeling very disheartened about it.

One day Mrs. Banks read in the paper that there was going to be a Baby Show in the town. She told Jessica, and Jessica said at once, “Oh, let’s put Toddy in! What fun!”

“Put Toddy in, put Toddy in,” cried Phil, thinking it was some sort of pond, and how funny Toddy would look in it.

“Oh, do let’s,” said Jessica, “and then if he won, Father would have a silver cup like the others.”

Mrs. Banks suddenly remembered that it was Father’s birthday next week. He had everything he wanted except a silver cup. How happy he would be if he could win one just in time for his birthday!

So Master Theodore Banks was entered for the Baby Show. Of course it was to be a secret from Mr. Banks, so every day when he was at the office where everything depended on him, the others used to get together and wonder how they could improve Toddy, so as to make sure that he would win the prize.

Mrs. Banks thought that he was perfect as he was.

Jessica thought that he would have been perfect if his hair had been a little more curly.

Phil thought that if he was put in a pond and made to swim, he would be much stronger. And perfecter.

So Jessica brushed and brushed and brushed his hair every day; and every day Phil tried to get hold of him so as to strengthen him. But Mrs. Banks kept him on the chest of drawers, so that Jessica could brush his hair and Phil couldn’t quite reach him, and she thought to herself, “I believe he will win the prize after all.” And every day when Mr. Banks came home from golf, she looked at him to see if he had won a silver cup; but he hadn’t.