Max thrust his hands into his ridiculous pockets and stood with his legs well apart. He always told the same class of story though the variations were several.
“Well,” he said slowly, “‘’was a ittle boy, an’ him said to hims mover, can I go down in the deep foresh all by myself, an’ she told him no. And’”—here Max paused very impressively till he had collected the eyes of all his audience—“‘he went. An’ he walked along, an’ he walked along, an’ he walked along, an’ he met’”—another pause, calculated to thrill his listeners—“‘a snake. An’ it clawled light up him an’ it ate him all up. Evly bit of him. Escept hims legs. An’ he walked along, an’ he walked along, an’ he walked along, an’ he met a tiger. An’ e tiger eat ’em up. Evly bit of ’em. Escept hims feet. An’ he walked along, an’ he walked along, an’ he walked along, an’ he met a horsh. An’ e horsh ate ’em all up. Evly bit of ’em. An’ nofing was left. Ony hims button. An’ hims mover had no dear ittle boy left’, so there.”
The unique part of the stories Max told [p169] was, he invariably managed to leave the impression that the moral of the tale was the mother should not have refused her consent to his going down the dark forest all alone and that she was the sole sufferer.
Pauline opened and shut her cramped hand half a dozen times.
“Thank goodness they’re done,” she said. “Give me that piece of paper to wrap them in, Muffie, and you go and get some string, Lynn, while I write to him.”
For the final destination of the tales had long since been settled.
So it happened that Hugh Kinross, coming home from the golf links at tea-time, was greeted by a bulky newspaper parcel on his desk, and the laconic note, “Please corect our mistakes and have them made into books like yours, only nicer covers. We like red except Lynn, and she likes green. And we like gold edges and plenty of pictures, and our names at the front in big letters.”
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