At the same moment, seven little children, who, up to then,
had been sleeping in the house, came tearing like mad into the garden.
Tyltyl and Mytyl ran up to them. They all hustled and hugged one
another and danced and whirled about and uttered screams of joy.

"Here they are, here they are!" said Granny. "As soon as you speak of
them, they are there, the imps!"

Tyltyl caught a little one by the hair:

"Hullo, Pierrot! So we're going to fight again, as in the old days!...
And Robert!... I say, Jean, what's become of your top?... Madeleine
and Pierrette and Pauline!... And here's Riquette!..."

Mytyl laughed:

"Riquette's still crawling on all fours!"

Tyltyl noticed a little dog yapping around them:

"There's Kiki, whose tail I cut off with Pauline's scissors.... He
hasn't changed either...."

"No," said Gaffer Tyl, in a voice of great importance, "nothing
changes here!"

But, suddenly, amid the general rejoicings, the old people stopped
spell-bound: they had heard the small voice of the clock indoors
strike eight!

[Illustration: The grandparents and grandchildren sat down to supper]

"How's this?" they asked. "It never strikes nowadays...."

"That's because we no longer think of the time," said Granny. "Was any
one thinking of the time?"

"Yes, I was," said Tyltyl. "So it's eight o'clock?... Then I'm off,
for I promised Light to be back before nine...."

He was going for the cage, but the others were too happy to let him
run away so soon: it would be horrid to say good-bye like that! Granny
had a good idea: she knew what a little glutton Tyltyl was. It was
just supper-time and, as luck would have it, there was some capital
cabbage-soup and a beautiful plum-tart.

"Well," said our hero, "as I've got the Blue Bird!... And cabbage-soup
is a thing you don't have every day!..."

They all hurried and carried the table outside and laid it with a nice
white table-cloth and put a plate for each; and, lastly, Granny
brought out the steaming soup-tureen in state. The lamp was lit and
the grandparents and grandchildren sat down to supper, jostling and
elbowing one another and laughing and shouting with pleasure. Then,
for a time, nothing was heard but the sound of the wooden spoons
noisily clattering against the soup-plates.

"How good it is! Oh, how good it is!" shouted Tyltyl, who was eating
greedily. "I want some more! More! More! More!"

"Come, come, a little more quiet," said Grandad. "You're just as