him many and cruel, was that Cooks are
Cross.

"What shall we do now, Dam?" asked Lucille, and added, "Let's raid
the rotten nursery and rag the Haddock. Little ass! Nothing else to
do. How I _hate_ Sunday afternoon.... No work and no play. Rotten."

The Haddock, it may be stated, owed his fishy title to the fact that
he once possessed a Wealthy Relative of the name of Haddon. With
far-sighted reversionary intent his mother, a Mrs. Berners _nee_
Seymour Stukeley, had christened him Haddon.

But the Wealthy Relative, on being informed of his good fortune, had
bluntly replied that he intended to leave his little all to the
founding of Night-Schools for illiterate Members of Parliament,
Travelling-Scholarships for uneducated Cabinet Ministers, and
Deportment Classes for New Radical Peers. He was a Funny Man as well
as a Wealthy Relative.

And, thereafter, Haddon Berners' parents had, as Cook put it, "up and
died" and "Grandfather" had sent for, and adopted, the orphan Haddock.

Though known to Dam and Lucille as "The Haddock" he was in reality an
utter Rabbit and esteemed as such. A Rabbit he was born, a Rabbit he
lived, and a Rabbit he died. Respectable ever. Seen in the Right
Place, in the Right Clothes, doing the Right Thing with the Right
People at the Right Time.

Lucille was the daughter of Sylvester Bethune Gavestone, the late and
lamented Bishop of Minsterbury (once a cavalry subaltern), a school,
Sandhurst, and life-long friend of "Grandfather," and husband of
"Grandfather's" cousin, Geraldine Seymour Stukeley.

Poor "Grandfather," known to the children as "Grumper," the ferocious
old tyrant who loved all mankind and hated all men, with him adoption
was a habit, and the inviting of other children to stay as long as
they liked with the adopted children, a craze.

And yet he rarely saw the children, never played with them, and hated
to be disturbed.

He had out-lived his soldier-contemporaries, his children, his power
to ride to hounds, his pretty taste in wine, his fencing, dancing,
flirting, and all that had made life bearable--everything, as he said,
but his gout and his liver (and, it may be added, except his
ferocious, brutal temper).

"Yes.... Let us circumvent, decoy, and utterly destroy the common
Haddock," agreed Dam.

The entry into the nursery was an effective night-attack by Blackfeet
(not to mention hands) but was spoilt by the presence of Miss Smellie
who was sitting there knitting rele