‘How would you like to adopt Diamond Jubilee again?’ she suggested cheerfully.
‘Scrumptious!’ said Micky, with his mouth full of bread and jam. ‘He’ll be champion at bowling when I’ve trained him a little more.’
‘And Punch is getting quite fond of him. He came and licked all over his face yesterday,’ put Kitty.
Emmeline looked doubtful. It was all very well having Diamond Jubilee for a fortnight’s visit, but adopting him again was another matter.
‘I’m afraid, Micky, it would hardly do to keep him here, even to play cricket with you,’ said Aunt Grace. ‘You see, he needs to be kept under strict discipline. No, my idea is for you children to send him to Mr. Faulkner’s Home. They’d take him for fifteen pounds a year, and it would be the making of him.’
‘Then shouldn’t we ever see him?’ said Kitty dolefully.
‘What a beastly dull sort of adoption!’ exclaimed Micky.
‘And where are the fifteen pounds to come from?’ said Emmeline, ‘even with birthday money and Christmas money put together we don’t get nearly fifteen pounds.’
‘Well,’ said Aunt Grace slowly, ‘you know I promised to get you a donkey and cart. If you were willing to do without them, I’d give you each five pounds a year instead, and you could pay for Diamond Jubilee’s keep at the Home. As to not seeing Diamond Jubilee, and its being a dull sort of adoption, he could always come and spend the summer holidays with us, you know, and you would get letters from him in between-whiles and hear a great deal about him from Mr. Faulkner. But, after all, whether it’s dull or interesting isn’t the question. The question is whether you are willing to deny yourselves a pleasure so as to give a poor little boy who has never had a chance yet the opportunity of growing up into a good, useful man. I don’t want to press you in any way, and I don’t want you to settle anything in a hurry, but talk it over quietly among yourselves and tell me in a day or two what you think of the plan.’