Goldilocks, fat, fair and rosy, appeared from behind a tree where she had been eating bananas.
She peered down the middle bear’s mouth.
“It’s a new one,” she said.
“The other hasn’t turned up,” said the man. “This is Billiam, who is taking on the middle one for the small consideration of five shillings.”
“He’s put out his tongue at me,” she screamed in shrill indignation.
At this the big bear, whose adoration of Goldilocks was very obvious, closed with William, and Goldilocks’ mother screamed shrilly.
The giant separated the two bears and Goldilocks came to the hut with an expression of patient suffering meant to represent intense physical weariness. She gave a start of joy at the sight of the hut, which apparently she did not see till she had almost passed it. She entered. She gave a second start of joy at the sight of three porridge plates. She tasted the first two and consumed the third. She wandered into the other room. She gave a third start of joy at the sight of three beds. She tried them all and went to sleep beautifully and realistically on the smallest. William was lost in admiration.
“Come on, bears,” said the man in shirt-sleeves. “Billiam, walk between them. Don’t jump. Walk. In at the door. That’s right. Now, Billiam, look at your plate, then shake your head at the big bear.”
Trembling with joy William obeyed. The big bear, in the privacy of the open mouth, put out his tongue at William with a hostile grimace. William returned it.
“Now to the little one,” said the man in shirt-sleeves. But William was still absorbed in the big one. Enraged by a particularly brilliant feat in the grimacing line which he felt he could not outshine, he put out a paw and tripped up the big bear’s chair. The big bear promptly picked up a porridge plate and broke it on William’s head. The little bear hurled himself ecstatically into the conflict. Father Christmas wearily returned to his work of separating them.