They crossed the stone-flagged hall, and Kit opened the dining-room door and marched boldly in. There was no one there; the big room was wrapped in silence, and Addison felt very small and timid as he stood on the threshold. Not so Kit; she walked boldly up to the table, which was laid. There was a great deal of old silver on the table, and many flowers; but its appearance was evidently most displeasing to Kit, for she exclaimed angrily:
“Look here, Addison, just look here! Jakes has only laid lunch for one!”
Even the mild and gentle Addison was roused to something like indignation at this tremendous intelligence. To have breakfast and tea in the nursery is an understood thing; but lunch—whoever heard of a well-conducted child having lunch anywhere but in the dining-room, once he or she could hold a spoon and fork? It was abominable; it had to be seen into at once.
Kit gave an indignant sniff, saying: “I know it isn’t Jakes; it’s Nana. She’d go and say we could have lunch with her till Miss Mercer came; but I’ll go and speak to grandpapa at once; it’s a shame; I won’t stand it. Come on!”
The obedient Addison trotted after Kit across the hall with some alacrity. He hadn’t seen much of grandpapa; but what he had seen he liked. How still the old house was, no sound to be heard but the drip, drip of the rain on the ivy outside the windows and the sizzle and fiz of the big logs in the great stone fireplace.
The children looked upon “Nanas” and their like as necessary evils. They divided mankind into two classes, which they called respectively “the dears” and “the deafs.” To the “dears” belonged father and mother, all father’s friends and most of mother’s; Gaffer and all Gaffer’s servants; orderlies—particularly orderlies—and grooms. To the “deafs” belonged nurses, governesses, cross gardeners, and a great many young ladies who wore smart frocks and were affectionate in public. These latter were called “deafs” not because of any defect in their aural arrangements, but simply because the children considered them incapable of discussing anything interesting. “Stupid people!” Kit was wont to observe, “who ask you how old you are, and who fetch stale cake out of tin boxes, and one’s got to eat it for politeness’ sake. Oh, I hate deafs!”
When Kit reached the study door she knocked, but there was no answer. “Mother says he never hears if he’s writing,” she whispered. “Let’s go in—come on!” So she turned the handle of the door and went in. Grandfather was writing. His great knee-hole table was piled with open books, and he had on his gold-rimmed spectacles. He never looked up as Kit shut the door softly behind her. For one thing, doors never creaked in grandfather’s house.
The children stood inside the door and waited, but he never looked up. “Come on,” said Kit, as, holding Addison by the hand, they walked leisurely across the room, till she stood close by their grandfather; then she said in a loud and cheerful voice:
“Good-morning, Gaffer; we’ve come to see you!”
“We’ve come to see you!” echoed the ever-obedient Addison. Grandfather was fond of old-fashioned things, and the name “Gaffer” was so delightfully inappropriate that he encouraged the children to use it when they spoke to him.