“Oh, you goose,” he said, “you’re trying to—to—— What was it that nurse did to me when I had to go to the dentist?”
“Put on your hat?” suggested Peggy.
“No,” squealed Jim, “I had my hat on. I know, break it to me. Daisy’s trying to break it to you that she doesn’t think you tell stories as well as Hugh, and so she tells you you make tea better. She’s a girl. Now, when I think a thing I say it straight out.”
“Yes, darling, I know you do,” remarked his mother, with certain vivid passages in her mind.
“Oh, Jim, shut up!” said Daisy. “You see, mummy darling, you make tea better because you are so much older than Hugh—oh, ever so much older!—and I think he tells stories better because he’s only a boy. You can’t have everything, can you? If you’re old and go in to dinner you can’t eat the ices on the stairs.”
Jim again belaboured the unoffending Thames.
“When I grow up I shall have everything,” he exclaimed. “I shall go in to dinner and eat everything, and then go out and eat ices on the stairs. And spotted-dog!” he added.
But Daisy was regarding her mother with a frown on her wise little face.
“You see, don’t you?” she said. “Of course, Aunt Edith can tell beautiful stories, but then she’s so frightfully clever that she can make believe to be young, so that you really do believe it.”
“Yes, darling, I see,” said Peggy.