"Fourpence halfpenny," said Daffy promptly; "and a penny belongs to the missionary box—I mean it has to go there."
"Why, Mr. Fibo, he said something about our big house; but it isn't our house at all! Daffy and me live in just a bit of it. The front stairs aren't ours even! Purling says we're not to go near them. We can't slide down the banisters or tobogg on a tea-tray down the stairs. You see, it's like this. Dad and Mums are to have all the big rooms downstairs when they come, and till then they're locked up. The bedrooms along the big passage belong to the housemaids. They say they won't have us messing up their rooms. Old Purling lives in the pantry—that's his part of the house; Mrs. Stilton has all the kitchen part of the house, and her dear little sitting-room, which she keeps us out of. And Daffy and me—we just have our day-nursery and our night-nursery, and the back stairs to go up and down. We're quite poor, you see. Only two rooms to live in, and those really belong to Nurse, she says. We haven't a single bit of room our very own."
"Except the corner," said Daffy, with twinkling eyes, "and the punishment chair."
"Have you ever sat in a chair," questioned Freda, turning her eager little face towards Fibo, "which is so small in the seat and high in the legs that you can't bend your back a tiny inch or you'll fall off?"
Fibo threw back his head and laughed aloud.
"We had one in our nursery when I was a boy. It was an heirloom then. I didn't think one was in existence now."
"Nurse found it in the nursery here. She sucked her lips when she saw it. She always sucks her lips when she's pleased. And we have to sit on it for half an hour when we're punished."
"I see that you are very unhappy children," said Fibo gravely; but his eyes were smiling in spite of his grave face.
Daffy pirouetted on her toes.
"We love it here," she said, "because we can be out of doors all day finding adventures."