“Tut-tut,” clicked Nurse. “What a mess you do get yourself into, I’m sure. Can’t you sit down and enjoy yourself quietly?”
“Did you see me make those silly old sheep run away, Nanny?” Michael asked.
“Yes, I did. And I should be ashamed to frighten poor animals so. You’ll get the policeman on your tracks.”
“I shouldn’t care,” said Michael boastfully. “He wouldn’t be able to catch me.”
“Wouldn’t he?” said Nurse very knowingly, as she laid out the tea-cups on a red rug.
“Oh, Michael,” Stella begged, “don’t make a policeman come after you.”
Michael was intoxicated by the thought of his future. He could not recognize the ability of any policeman to check his desires, and because it was impossible to voice in any other way the impulses and ambitions and hopes that were surging in his soul, he went on boasting.
“Ha, I’d like to see an old policeman run after me. I’d trip him up and roll him all down the hill, I would. I’d put his head in a rabbit hole. I would. I can run faster than a policeman, I can.”
Michael was swaggering round and round the spread-out cups and saucers and plates.
“If you put your foot on those jam sandwiches, you’ll go straight back to the carriage and wait there till we’ve finished tea. Do you hear?”