ring shower out of the pantry window
on to the bed nearest the garden wall. Upon this morning someone called
him; he turned his head; the water still flowed, and Aunt Amy, hatless
and defenceless, received it as it tumbled with that sudden rush which
always seizes a watering-can at its last gasp. Jeremy was banished into
his bedroom, where he employed the sunny morning in drawing pictures of
Aunt Amy as a witch upon the wallpaper. For doing this he was caned
by Aunt Amy herself with a ruler, and at the end of the operation
he laughed and said she hadn't hurt him at all. In return for this
impertinence he was robbed, at luncheon, of his pudding--which was,
of course, on that very day, marmalade pudding--and then, Mary being
discovered putting some of hers into a piece of paper, to be delivered
to him in due course, they were both stood in different corners of the
room "until you say you're sorry."

When the jingle arrived at three o'clock they had still not made this
acknowledgment, and Jeremy said he never would, "not if he lived till
he was ninety-nine." At quarter past three Jeremy might have been seen
sitting up very straight in the jingle, his face crimson from washing
and temper. He was wearing his new sailor suit, which tickled him and
was hot and sticky; he sat there devoting the whole of his energies to
the business of hating Aunt Amy.

As I have said, he had never hated anyone before, and he was surprised
at the glow of virtuous triumph that this new emotion spread over his
body. He positively loved to hate Aunt Amy, and as Parkes, the pony,
slowly toiled up the hill to the Cathedral, he sat stiff and proud with
an almost humorous anger. Then, as they turned over the hot shining
cobbles into the Close and saw the green trees swimming in the sun, he
turned his mind to the party. What games would they play? Who would be
there? What would there be for tea? He felt creeping over him the stiff
shyness that always comes when one is approaching a party, and he wished
that the first handshaking and the first plunge into the stares of the
critical guests might be over. But he did not really care. His hatred
of Aunt Amy braced him up; when one was capable of so fine and manly an
emotion as this hatred, one need not bother about fellow-guests. Then
the jingle stopped outside a house immediately opposite the great
west-end door of the Cathedral; in the little hall Miss Maddison was
standing, and from the glittering garden