‘How can I, with Mr. Brown always about? There—I do believe he has finished at last! Oh no, he’s only going to that other bed!’ exclaimed Emmeline, as Mr. Brown stopped at the flower-bed just beneath the schoolroom window. ‘What have you come back for?’ she added. ‘It’s not nearly tea-time yet.’
‘Diamond Jubilee said the monkey-nuts had made him so thirsty he must have a drink of water,’ explained Kitty, ‘so I thought I’d see if I couldn’t take him some in the tooth-glass. I shall have to wait till Mr. Brown’s gone, though,’ and she flung herself down on the lawn by Emmeline’s side. ‘We met Diamond Jubilee just outside the garden,’ she continued, ‘and we’ve been having a lovely time—at least, the last part of it was lovely. The first part he wasn’t well (do you know, Emmeline, I’m afraid monkey-nuts don’t agree with him; he calls them “blooming,” and he’d have thrown what’s left of them away, only Micky wouldn’t let him); but after he got well again we took him to the Feudal Castle, which he doesn’t seem to mind when we’re there, and he told us all sorts of exciting things about Green Ginger Land. It sounds lovely, and like a fairy-story, doesn’t it? But it’s really the place where Diamond Jubilee lived with Mother Grimes and lots of other interesting people.’
‘How very naughty of him to grumble at his food!’ broke in Emmeline, who had not been paying much attention to the last part of Kitty’s remarks. ‘I expect it was all those unripe apples he stole that really disagreed with him, not the monkey-nuts. He certainly is an extremely trying boy.’
‘Come you here, Punch!’ Mr. Brown suddenly shouted in a very angry voice, causing Emmeline to jump violently, and Punch, who had been happily employed in smelling about for imaginary rats, to spring on to her knee, and begin wagging his tail in a frightened, deprecating way.
‘What’s the matter, Mr. Brown?’ called out Kitty, bristling up directly. ‘Punch has been as good as gold—haven’t you, darling?’ and she kissed one of his tan cheeks.
Mr. Brown was striding towards them with a wrathful face. ‘Good as gold, have he?’ he echoed, indignantly. ‘I’ll teach him to be as good as gold! Trolloping over the flower-beds, and breaking my best chrysanth’ums! A good-as-gold beating’s what he deserves.’
‘No, he doesn’t! You shan’t touch him, Mr. Brown, you cruel, wicked man!’ screamed Kitty, while Punch raised his shrill, exasperating alarm-bark, and Emmeline bent over him protectingly.
‘I shan’t have a flower left in the garden soon,’ continued the angry Mr. Brown, ‘and I reckoned to have taken this one to the Show!’
‘Which one was it?’ asked Emmeline, uneasily. ‘Oh, do be quiet, Punch!’