“At any rate, Peter, I think you are old enough to stop lisping,” Poppet said severely, finding herself worsted. “You are six now, and only babies of ten months lisp. I never lisped at all.”
Peter went red in the face.
“I don’t lithp; you’re a thtory-teller, Poppet Woolcot!” he said, drawing in his tongue with a great effort at straight pronunciation.
[22]
]Poppet jeered unkindly, then she caught sight of Bunty strolling aimlessly about the garden, and she squeezed herself out of the tank and stood upright.
“Don’t go,” said Peter. “Leth play Zoo, Poppet, and you can be the lion thith time, and I’ll feed you!”
But not even this inducement had any effect.
“I want to talk to Bunty,” the little girl said, looking across with a half-troubled light in her eyes to where Bunty’s old cap was visible. “I can play with you when he’s at school. You can go and have a game with Baby.”
She went away, leaving him disconsolate, and crushed herself through a broken paling into the garden.
She would like to have gone up to Bunty and slipped her arm through his and asked him what had made him so exceptionally glum and silent these last few days.
But she knew him better than that. She was very wise for her nine years.