e'll see.
Play with Judy now, and don't open a book for a week."

Judy did not pass a very enjoyable playtime with Punch, who was
consumed with indignation. There was a pettiness at the bottom of the
prohibition which puzzled him.

"It's what I like to do," he said, "and she's found out that and
stopped me. Don't cry, Ju--it was n't your fault--please don't cry, or
she'll say I made you."

Ju loyally mopped up her tears, and the two played in their nursery, a
room in the basement and half underground, to which they were
regularly sent after the midday dinner while Aunty Rosa slept. She
drank wine--that is to say, something from a bottle in the
cellaret--for her stomach's sake, but if she did not fall asleep she
would sometimes come into the nursery to see that the children were
really playing. Now bricks, wooden hoops, ninepins, and chinaware
cannot amuse forever, especially when all Fairyland is to be won by
the mere opening of a book, and, as often as not, Punch would be
discovered reading to Judy or tell her interminable tales. That was an
offence in the eyes of the law, and Judy would be whisked off by Aunty
Rosa, while Punch was left to play alone, "and be sure that I hear you
doing it."

It was not a cheering employ, for he had to make a playful noise. At
last, with infinite craft, he devised an arrangement whereby the table
could be supported as to three legs on toy bricks, leaving the fourth
clear to bring down on the floor. He could work the table with one
hand and hold a book with the other. This he did till an evil day when
Aunty Rosa pounced upon him unawares and told him that he was "acting
a lie."

"If you're old enough to do that," she said--her temper was always
worst after dinner--"you're old enough to be beaten."

"But--I'm--I'm not a animal!" said Punch, aghast. He remembered Uncle
Harry and the stick, and turned white. Aunty Rosa had hidden a light
cane behind her, and Punch was beaten then and there over the
shoulders. It was a revelation to him. The room door was shut, and he
was left to weep himself into repentance and work out his own Gospel
of Life.

Aunty Rosa, he argued, had the power to beat him with many stripes. It
was unjust and cruel and Mamma and Papa would never have allowed it.
Unless perhaps, as Aunty Rosa seemed to imply, they had sent secret
orders. In which case he was abandoned indeed. It would be discreet in
the future to propitiate Aunty Rosa, but, then, again, even in