Mrs. Tressiter told him that Robin had something very important to say to him and that he was going to stay awake until he, Peter, came up to him.
“I told him,” she said, “that he must lie down and go to sleep like a good boy and that his father would punish him if he didn't. But there! What's the use of it? He isn't afraid of his father the slightest. He would go on—something about a lion....”
At any rate this gave Peter an excuse to escape from the table and it was, indeed, time, for they had all settled, like a clatter of hens, on to the subject of the bomb, and they all had a great deal to say about it and a great many questions to ask Peter.
“It's these Foreigners... of course our Police are entirely inadequate.”
“Yes—that's what I say—the Police are really absurdly inadequate—”
“If they will allow these foreigners—”
“Yes, what can you expect—and the Police really can't—”
Peter escaped to Robin. He glowered down at the child who was sitting up in his cot counting the flowers on the old wall-paper to keep himself awake.
“I always am so muddled after fourteen,” he said. “Never mind, I'm not sleeping—”
Peter frowned at him. “You ought to have been asleep long ago,” he said. He wished the boy hadn't got his hair tousled in that absurdly fascinating way and that his cheeks weren't flushed so beautiful a red—also his nightgown had lost a button at the top and showed a very white little neck. Peter blinked his eyes—“Look here, kid, you must go to sleep right away at once. What do you want?”