ght, but
on the fifteenth? That's next Thursday."

"_I_ don't mind when you have them, dear," said Mother, "but why?"

"Because it's Perks's birthday," said Bobbie; "he's thirty-two, and
he says he doesn't keep his birthday any more, because he's got other
things to keep--not rabbits or secrets--but the kids and the missus."

"You mean his wife and children," said Mother.

"Yes," said Phyllis; "it's the same thing, isn't it?"

"And we thought we'd make a nice birthday for him. He's been so awfully
jolly decent to us, you know, Mother," said Peter, "and we agreed that
next bun-day we'd ask you if we could."

"But suppose there hadn't been a bun-day before the fifteenth?" said
Mother.

"Oh, then, we meant to ask you to let us anti--antipate it, and go
without when the bun-day came."

"Anticipate," said Mother. "I see. Certainly. It would be nice to put
his name on the buns with pink sugar, wouldn't it?"

"Perks," said Peter, "it's not a pretty name."

"His other name's Albert," said Phyllis; "I asked him once."

"We might put A. P.," said Mother; "I'll show you how when the day
comes."

This was all very well as far as it went. But even fourteen halfpenny
buns with A. P. on them in pink sugar do not of themselves make a very
grand celebration.

"There are always flowers, of course," said Bobbie, later, when a really
earnest council was being held on the subject in the hay-loft where
the broken chaff-cutting machine was, and the row of holes to drop hay
through into the hay-racks over the mangers of the stables below.

"He's got lots of flowers of his own," said Peter.

"But it's always nice to have them given you," said Bobbie, "however
many you've got of your own. We can use flowers for trimmings to the
birthday. But there must be something to trim besides buns."

"Let's all be quiet and think," said Phyllis; "no one's to speak until
it's thought of something."

So they were all quiet and so very still that a brown rat thought that
there was no one in the loft and came out very boldly. When Bobbie
sneezed, the rat was quite shocked and hurried away, for he saw that a
hay-loft where such things could happen was no place for a respectable
middle-aged rat that liked a quiet life.

"Hooray!" cried Peter, suddenly, "I've got it." He jumped up and kicked
at the loose hay.

"What?" said the others, eagerly.

"Why, Perks is so nice to everybody. There must be lots of people in the
village who'd like to