"You shan't bully him," said Anthea stoutly,—"not if I can stop it."
"We must tame him by kindness," said Jane.
"You see," said Robert, "if he grows up in the usual way, there'll be plenty of time to correct him as he goes along. The awful thing to-day was his growing up so suddenly. There was no time to improve him at all."
"He doesn't want any improving," said Anthea as the voice of the Lamb came cooing through the open door, just as she had heard it in her heart that afternoon—
"Me loves Panty—wants to come to own Panty!"
CHAPTER X
SCALPS
Probably the day would have been a greater success if Cyril had not been reading The Last of the Mohicans. The story was running in his head at breakfast, and as he took his third cup of tea he said dreamily, "I wish there were Red Indians in England—not big ones, you know, but little ones, just about the right size for us to fight."
Everyone disagreed with him at the time and no one attached any importance to the incident. But when they went down to the sand-pit to ask for a hundred pounds in two-shilling pieces with Queen Victoria's head on, to prevent mistakes—which they had always felt to be a really reasonable wish that must turn out well—they found out that they had done it again! For the Psammead, which was very cross and sleepy, said—