“Anticipate,” said Mother. “I see. Certainly. It would be nice to put his name on the buns with pink sugar, wouldn't it?”
“Perks,” said Peter, “it's not a pretty name.”
“His other name's Albert,” said Phyllis; “I asked him once.”
“We might put A. P.,” said Mother; “I'll show you how when the day comes.”
This was all very well as far as it went. But even fourteen halfpenny buns with A. P. on them in pink sugar do not of themselves make a very grand celebration.
“There are always flowers, of course,” said Bobbie, later, when a really earnest council was being held on the subject in the hay-loft where the broken chaff-cutting machine was, and the row of holes to drop hay through into the hay-racks over the mangers of the stables below.
“He's got lots of flowers of his own,” said Peter.
“But it's always nice to have them given you,” said Bobbie, “however many you've got of your own. We can use flowers for trimmings to the birthday. But there must be something to trim besides buns.”
“Let's all be quiet and think,” said Phyllis; “no one's to speak until it's thought of something.”
So they were all quiet and so very still that a brown rat thought that there was no one in the loft and came out very boldly. When Bobbie sneezed, the rat was quite shocked and hurried away, for he saw that a hay-loft where such things could happen was no place for a respectable middle-aged rat that liked a quiet life.