allowed one moment's delicious balance and then an equally delicious
slide on to the floor.

Certainly the day-nursery was the best room in the tall thin house, just
as the morning-room was the worst. The morning-room was odious. In it
were eaten breakfast and dinner, both nasty meals. Near it was the
coal-cellar and the area-door with its grinning errand boys. The windows
afforded foothold to strange cats that stared abominably with yellow
eyes. Tramps and sweeps walked past the area-railings or looked in
evilly. Horrid gipsies smirked through the window, and pedlars often
tapped. The morning-room was utterly abominable, fit only for the boiled
mutton and caper sauce and suet puddings that loaded its table.

The kitchen, although it was next to the morning-room, was a far
pleasanter resort. So far as any ground-floor now could be considered
safe, the kitchen was safe. It looked out upon its own fortified
basement whose perforated iron staircase had a spiked door at the top,
which could be securely shut. The kitchen contained a large number of
objects of natural interest, among which was a shallow cupboard that
included upon an attainable shelf jars of currants, sultanas, and rice
much more edible in the raw state than cooked. There was the
electric-bell case, recording with mysterious discs a far-off summons.
There was the drawer in the kitchen table that contained, besides knives
and forks, a rolling-pin, a tin-opener, a corkscrew, skewers and, most
exciting of all, a club-shaped cage for whipping eggs. There was also a
deep drawer in the dresser which held many revelations of the private
history of Annie and Cook. Michael could easily have spent days in the
kitchen without exhausting its treasures, and as for Cook, gross though
she was and heavily though she smelt of onions and beer, her tales were
infinitely superior to anything ever known in the way of narration.

Towards the end of June, Mrs. Fane came back. Her arrival was heralded
by the purchase of several pots of marguerites and calceolarias--the
latter to Michael a very objectionable flower because, detecting in it
some resemblance to his dearly loved snapdragons, he pressed open the
mouth of a flower and, finding inside a small insect, had to drop the
whole pot in a shudder. This brought the punishment of not being allowed
to watch from the steps for his mother's cab rounding the corner into
Carlington Road, and made calceolarias for ever hateful. However