“He’s tum to gobble us,” Sylvius bellowed.
“To gobble us, to gobble us,” Rose wailed.
“He’s not a gollywog, darlings,” their mother declared. “He makes pretty pictures, oh, such pretty pictures of—”
“He is a gollywog,” choked Sylvius, in an ecstasy of rage and fear.
“A gollywog, a gollywog,” Rose insisted.
Their mother changed her tactics. “But he’s a kind gollywog. Oh, such a kind gollywog, the kindest, nicest gollywog that was ever thought of.”
“He is—ent,” both children proclaimed. “He’s bad!”
“Don’t you think I’d better go?” asked the painter. “I think it must be my hair that’s upsetting them.”
He started toward the door, but, unfortunately, he was on the wrong side of the children, who, seeing him make a move in their direction, set up such an appalling yell that the poor young man drew back in despair. In the middle of this the maid entered, announcing Mr. Arthur Madden, who followed close upon her heels. Sylvius and Rose were by this time obsessed with the idea of an invasion by an army of gollywogs, and Arthur’s pleasant face took on for them the dreaded lineaments of the foe. Both children clung shrieking to their mother’s skirts. Sylvia and Jack were leaning back, incapable through laughter. Arthur and Lucian Hope surveyed miserably the scene they had created. At last the nurse arrived to rescue the twins, and they were carried away without being persuaded to change their minds about the inhuman nature of the two visitors.
Arthur apologized for worrying Sylvia, but his mother was so anxious to know when she was coming down to Dulwich, and as he had been up in town seeing about an engagement, he had not been able to resist coming to visit her.