“What’s the biggest snake you ever saw?”
“Oh, bother the snakes! I am tired of them.”
But the children were never tired of them. Heredity again, for the snake was the worst enemy of arboreal man.
“Daddy made soup out of a snake,” said Laddie. “Tell us about that snake, Daddy.”
Children like a story best the fourth or fifth time, so it is never any use to tell them that they know all about it. The story which they can check and correct is their favourite.
“Well, dear, we got a viper and we killed it. Then we wanted the skeleton to keep and we didn’t know how to get it. At first we thought we would bury it, but that seemed too slow. Then I had the idea to boil all the viper’s flesh off its bones, and I got an old meat-tin and we put the viper and some water into it and put it above the fire.”
“You hung it on a hook, Daddy.”
“Yes, we hung it on the hook that they put the porridge pot on in Scotland. Then just as it was turning brown in came the farmer’s wife, and ran up to see what we were cooking. When she saw the viper she thought we were going to eat it. ‘Oh, you dirty divils!’ she cried, and caught up the tin in her apron and threw it out of the window.”
Fresh shrieks of laughter from the children, and Dimples repeated “You dirty divil!” until Daddy had to clump him playfully on the head.
“Tell us some more about snakes,” cried Laddie. “Did you ever see a really dreadful snake?”