"Hairpins, of course! You always start with hairpins. And this," indicating a narrow oblong, "why, this must be that silver tray someone's always leaving her hairpins lying about on. Now for the hair-brushes—two of those—" (unerringly symmetrical)—"then the comb—" (equipped with most effective sand-teeth)—"then a powder-box? Well, a very little one——"
As fast as he thought of them, fresh articles (or their symbols) came into being. There was no pause. "The shoe-horn, the button-hook, oh! and a clothes-brush——"
Immediately following the last hair of the clothes-brush a rectangle put in an appearance around these assorted objects.
"Mummy's dressing-table," asserted Master Dick authoritatively.
"Sound man! What else do we want?"
The children suggested alternately and in chorus the completion of the plan. An armchair with cushions incredibly soft, a fire-place pokered and tonged, a wardrobe (disproportionately enormous), two colossal hat-boxes, and detail after detail, with finally the door, the key-hole and the key.
The little hamlet somewhere in France had been shelled spasmodically for months. Possibly there was something faintly familiar in the seated figure of that Captain of Engineers that caught my eye; one did not often come across Captains of Engineers sitting on débris in the village street. He squatted on a pile of granular masonry before a rudely prepared space surrounded by three small ragged children gazing round-eyed at something he was drawing with half a Nilgiri cane in the powdered rubble. I paused to look, and there arose before me the picture of a man with a boy and girl on a bygone day in happy England.
"On commence avec le sel," he was explaining as he indicated the shape of a salt-cellar. "Eh b'en, après ça quat' assiettes, des couteaux, des fourchettes——" All the appurtenances of a homely table were quickly put in. "Et puis la table, n'est-ce pas? Et surtout faut pas oublier quelqu'chose à manger, eh, Jeanne?"
"Non, monsieur." But the little girl was busy pointing to where a small brown bird pecked fruitlessly in the dust. "Regardez, donc, le p'tit oiseau; il n'a pas mangé, c'lui là."