Don’t keep them stiff like that. You’ll drop her,” Isabel would say sternly.

Now they were standing on the verandah and holding back Snooker who wanted to go into the house but wasn’t allowed to because Aunt Linda hated decent dogs.

“We came over in the bus with Mum,” they said, “and we’re going to spend the afternoon with you. We brought over a batch of our gingerbread for Aunt Linda. Our Minnie made it. It’s all over nuts.”

“I skinned the almonds,” said Pip. “I just stuck my hand into a saucepan of boiling water and grabbed them out and gave them a kind of pinch and the nuts flew out of the skins, some of them as high as the ceiling. Didn’t they, Rags?”

Rags nodded. “When they make cakes at our place,” said Pip, “we always stay in the kitchen, Rags and me, and I get the bowl and he gets the spoon and the egg beater. Sponge cake’s best. It’s all frothy stuff, then.”

He ran down the verandah steps to the lawn, planted his hands on the grass, bent forward, and just did not stand on his head.

“That lawn’s all bumpy,” he said. “You have to have a flat place for standing on your head. I can walk round the monkey tree on my head at our place. Can’t I, Rags?”

“Nearly,” said Rags faintly.

“Stand on your head on the verandah. That’s quite flat,” said Kezia.

“No, smarty,” said Pip. “You have to do it on something soft. Because if you give a jerk and fall over, something in your neck goes click, and it breaks off. Dad told me.”

“Oh, do let’s play something,” said Kezia.

“Very well,” said Isabel quickly, “we’ll play hospitals. I will be the nurse and Pip can be the doctor and you and Lottie and Rags can be the sick people.”

Lottie didn’t want to play that, because last time Pip had squeezed something down her throat and it hurt awfully.

“Pooh,” scoffed Pip. “It was only the juice out of a bit of mandarin peel.”

“Well, let’s play ladies,” said Isabel. “Pip can be the father and you can be all our dear little children.”

“I hate playing ladies,” said Kezia. “You always make us go to church hand in hand and come home and go to bed.”

Suddenly Pip took a filthy handkerchief out of his pocket. “Snooker! Here, sir,” he called. But Snooker, as usual, tried to sneak away, his tail between his legs. Pip leapt on top of him, and pressed him between his knees.

“Keep his head firm, Rags,” he said, and he tied the handkerchief round Snooker’s head with a funny knot sticking up at the top.

“Whatever is that for?” asked Lottie.

“It’s to train his ears to grow more close to his head — see?” said Pip. “All fighting dogs have ears that lie back. But Snooker’s ears are a bit too soft.”

“I know,” said Kezia. “They are always turning inside out. I hate that.”

Snooker lay down, made one feeble effort with his paw to get the handkerchief off, but finding he could not, trailed after the children, shivering with misery.

IX

Pat came swinging along; in his hand he held a little tomahawk that winked in the sun.

“Come with me,” he said to the children, “and I’ll show you how the kings of Ireland chop the head off a duck.”

They drew back — they didn’t believe him, and besides, the Trout boys had never seen Pat before.

“Come on now,” he coaxed, smiling and holding out his hand to Kezia.

“Is it a real duck’s head? One from the paddock?”

“It is,” said Pat. She put her hand in his hard dry one, and he stuck the tomahawk in his belt and held out the other to Rags. He loved little children.

“I’d better keep hold of Snooker’s head if there’s going to be any blood about,” said Pip, “because the sight of blood makes him awfully wild.” He ran ahead dragging Snooker by the handkerchief.

“Do you think we ought to go?” whispered Isabel.