one in the middle of the stable-yard when the thought came to
him.

'Perhaps they're only made invisible. Perhaps they're all here and
watching me and making fun of me.'

He stood still to think this. It was not a pleasant thought.

Suddenly he straightened his little back, and threw back his head.

'They shan't see I'm frightened anyway,' he told himself. And then he
remembered the larder.

'I haven't had any breakfast,' he explained aloud, so as to be plainly
heard by any invisible people who might be about. 'I ought to have my
breakfast. If nobody gives it to me I shall take my breakfast.'

He waited for an answer. But none came. It was very quiet in the
stable-yard. Only the rattle of a halter ring against a manger, the
sound of a hoof on stable stones, the cooing of pigeons and the rustle
of straw in the loose-box broke the silence.

'Very well,' said Philip. 'I don't know what _you_ think I ought to have
for breakfast, so I shall take what _I_ think.'

He drew a long breath, trying to draw courage in with it, threw back his
shoulders more soldierly than ever, and marched in through the back door
and straight to the larder. Then he took what he thought he ought to
have for breakfast. This is what he thought:

1 cherry pie,
2 custards in cups,
1 cold sausage,
2 pieces of cold toast,
1 piece of cheese,
2 lemon cheese-cakes,
1 small jam tart (there was only one left),
Butter, 1 pat.

'What jolly things the servants have to eat,' he said. 'I never knew. I
thought that nothing but mutton and rice grew here.'

He put all the food on a silver tray and carried it out on to the
terrace, which lies between the two wings at the back of the house. Then
he went back for milk, but there was none to be seen so he got a white
jug full of water. The spoons he couldn't find, but he found a
carving-fork and a fish-slice. Did you ever try to eat cherry pie with a
fish-slice?

'Whatever's happened,' said Philip to himself, through the cherry pie,
'and whatever happens it's as well to have had your breakfast.' And he
bit a generous inch off the cold sausage which he had speared with the
carving-fork.

And now, sitting out in the good sunshine, and growing less and less
hungry as he plied fish-slice and carving-fork, his mind went back to
his dream, which began to seem more and more real. Suppose it really
_had_ happened? It might have; ma