"An' my mother says it didn't 'arf cost somethink, neether. But ain't 'e got a cheek to do it? 'Cos it ain't right for a man to send presents like that to a gel when she's grown up: 'cos my mother says it's takin' a liberty. Whoever sent me it, 'e must 'a' been a artist because of the tasty yoke. My mother says as I'm a grown-up gel now, an' I got to be very pertickler.
"Oo, it is pretty, though, I tell you: pink ribbon on the shoulders, an' my mother says 'ooever 'e is 'e oughter be ashamed of 'isself, an' all my gel cousins from Catford are comin' on Sunday to 'ave a look, an' when I find out 'oo it is, my mother says I can tell 'im what I think of 'im."
Stimulated and cheered by the thought of this exciting prospect, Prudence fell upon the muffins. Her appetite, at any rate, was thoroughly grown up, and, having performed a veritable gastronomic feat, she curled herself up on the musty old curtain which carpeted Baffin's "throne" and—went to sleep.
Whereupon, the unauthorised kittens—they crawled everywhere—you found them in the milk jug—promptly employed the skirts of Prudence as a playground.
"Move those kittens away, like a good chap," Baffin called out to me. "They'll worry Prudence when she wakes up. Hates the silly beggars, you know."
But to our surprise, when Prudence did wake up, she stretched forth a foot, and began to tease the plumpest of them with the point of her shoe.
"Funny objec's, ain't they, when they're fat and soft, like this?" said Prudence. "Breakable, ain't they? No strength in their legs. On'y fit to lie on their backs an' be tickled."
And Prudence stooped down, and lifted the plump one into her lap.
"Ooh, my! 'is little pores ain't 'arf soft!" She spoke in the woman's voice that we had heard but once before. "'Is little pores ain't 'arf soft; you could bite 'em."
She kissed a paw.