he way things went on day after day. They almost lived at
their windows. They watched the Tidy Castle family get up and be
dressed by their maids and valets in different clothes almost every
day. They saw them drive out in their carriages, and have parties,
and go to balls. They all nearly had brain fever with delight the
day they watched Lady Gwendolen and Lady Muriel and Lady Doris,
dressed in their Court trains and feathers, going to be presented
at the first Drawing-Room.

After the lovely creatures had gone the whole family sat down in a
circle round the Racketty-Packetty House library fire, and Ridiklis
read aloud to them about Drawing-Rooms, out of a scrap of the
Lady's Pictorial she had found, and after that they had a Court
Drawing-Room of their own, and they made tissue-paper trains and
glass bead crowns for diamond tiaras, and sometimes Gustibus
pretended to be the Royal family, and the others were presented to
him and kissed his hand, and then the others took turns and he was
presented. And suddenly the most delightful thing occurred to Peter
Piper. He thought it would be rather nice to make them all into
lords and ladies and he did it by touching them on the shoulder
with the drawing-room poker which he straightened because it was so
crooked that it was almost bent double. It is not exactly the way
such things are done at Court, but Peter Piper thought it would do--
and at any rate it was great fun. So he made them all kneel down in
a row and he touched each on the shoulder with the poker and said:

"Rise up, Lady Meg and Lady Peg and Lady Kilmanskeg and Lady
Ridiklis of Racketty-Packetty House-and also the Right Honorable
Lord Gustibus Rags!" And they all jumped up at once and made bows
and curtsied to each other. But they made Peter Piper into a Duke,
and he was called the Duke of Tags. He knelt down on the big hole
in the carpet and each one of them gave him a little thump on the
shoulder with the poker, because it took more thumps to make a Duke
than a common or garden Lord.

[Transcriber's Note: See picture duke.jpg]

The day after this another much more exciting thing took place. The
nurse was in a bad temper and when she was tidying the nursery she
pushed the easy chair aside and saw Racketty-Packetty House.

"Oh!" she said, "there is that Racketty-Packetty old thing still. I
had forgotten it. It must be carried down-stairs and burned. I will
go and tell one of the footmen to come for it."

M