perfectly well that they were being thrown over, began to cry.

"Daddy, take _me_--take _me_," sobbed Dossie.

"And me!" Stanley positively screamed it.

"I say, you know, if they're going to howl," said Ranny.

"You _must_--"

"That's it, I mustn't. They can't have everything they choose to howl
for."

"There," said Winny. "See! Daddy can't take you if you cry. He can't,
really."

(She had gone--perfidious Winny!--to the drawer where she knew Stanley's
clean suit was. Stanley knew it too.)

The children stopped crying as by magic. With eyes where pathos and
resentment mingled they gazed at their incredible father. Tears, large
crystal tears, hung on the flame-red crests of their hot cheeks.

Winny turned before she actually opened the drawer.

"Who wants," said she, "to go with Daddy?"

"Me," said Dossie.

"Me," said Stanley.

"Well, then, give Daddy a kiss and ask him nicely. Then perhaps he'll
take you."

And they did, and he had to take them. But it was mean, it was
treacherous of Winny.

"What did you do that for, Winky?" he said, going over to her where she
rummaged in the drawer.

"Because," she said, "you promised."

"Promised what?"

"Promised you'd take them. Promised Stanny he should wear his knickers.
They told me you'd promised."

And he had.

"I forgot," he said.

"_They'd_ never have forgotten."

She was holding them, the ridiculous knickers, to the nursery fire.

It took ten minutes to get Stanley into them, into the little blue linen
knickers he had never worn before, and into his tight little white
jersey; and then there was Dossie and her wonderful rig-out, the clean,
white frock and the serge jacket of turquoise blue and the tiny mushroom
hat with the white ribbon. It took five minutes more to find Stanley's
hat, the little soft hat of white felt, in which he was so adorable.
They found it on Ranny's bed, and then they started.

It was a great, an immense adventure, right away to the other side of
London.

"We'll take everything we can," said Ranny. And they did. They took the
motor bus to Earl's Court Tube Station, and the Tube (two Tubes they had
to take) to Golder's Green. The adventure began in the first lift.

"Where we goin'?" the children cried. "Where we goin', Daddy?"

"We're going down--down--ever so far down, with London on the top of
us--All the horses"--Winny worked the excitement up and up--"All the
people--All the motor buses on the top of us--"