Timothy enjoyed that summer. He was always more than ready for his stern Miss Valentine to take him out for a little exercise. Timothy’s idea of exercise was a variant of tip-and-run in the field behind the barns. Timothy tipped and Laura ran. But when human nature dropped at last, protesting, on a haycock, Timothy was always kindly resigned to a rest. He would dig like a terrier at the next cock, till he had shaped ‘a armchair’ into which Laura would be inducted with much ceremony and provided with a dock-leaf fan. These were courtesies for which stories (“true stories, not silly old fairies,” was the typical Cloud proviso) were considered a graceful acknowledgement.
Laura, beautifully trained before a week was out, would accordingly parade for his criticism such desperadoes of antiquity as Daniel, Jack the Giant Killer, Oliver Twist, Jonah, and invariably conclude the entertainment, by request, with that favourite legend of her own childhood—‘How Uncle Justin threw the porridge at Miss Beamish!’
“Well——” and Timothy would squirm with excitement, “once upon a time—when Uncle Justin-at-the-war was quite a little boy——” and so on to the enthralling catastrophe:
“And there was poor Miss Beamish with her hair all messed——”
“He was awful—wasn’t he?”
“Awful isn’t the word!”
“Umn. Go on.”
“Well—that’s about all.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”