"A lot of int'rest you take in animals, don't you?—in real animals." William exploded bitterly. "A lot of int'rest you take in my insecks an' rats an' things, don't you? I mus' say you take a lot of int'rest in them," he went on in heavy sarcasm.
"Cats! Who'd call cats an animal? They aren't int'restin', are they? Who ever found cats int'restin'? They don't follow you like dogs, do they? They haven't int'restin' habits like insecks—oh, I mus' say they're very int'restin'!"
He saw Ethel and his mother gathering breath to speak. His father had retired behind a paper.
He hastily went out, shutting the door firmly behind him.
"Cats!" he remarked, contemptuously, to the empty hall.
William was walking slowly along the road, with his hands in his pockets, whistling. He felt at peace with all the world. He had a half-crown in his pocket. It would soon be Christmas. He was going to have a bicycle for Christmas. Ethel had insisted on his having a bicycle for Christmas, not for love of William, but because William's secret experiments with her bicycle had such dire results.
"He'll only smash it up, if he has one, dear," his mother had said.
"Well, he'll only smash up mine, if he doesn't," Ethel had replied.
So William was going to have a bicycle and a mouth-organ and pocket-compass, in addition, of course, to the strange things always sent as presents by distant aunts and uncles. Those did not count—pencil-boxes, and story-books about curious, exemplary boys, and boxes of crayons and pens and things. They didn't count.
Anyway, a bicycle was a bicycle. He wanted to be able to take a bicycle right to pieces and put it together again. He'd never been able to have a really good try at Ethel's. She made such a fuss. He was thinking about this, with a faint smile on his face, when he observed a man coming along with a covered basket in his hands. It was Mr. Romford. William looked at him coldly. He had no hopes of a Christmas present from Mr. Romford. But Mr. Romford stopped.