* * *

_N.B._--Pincher was found on the drawing-room sofa.

* * * * *

_Appendix._--I have not told you half the things we did for the
jungle--for instance, about the elephants' tusks and the horse-hair
sofa-cushions and uncle's fishing-boots.

THE WOULDBEGOODS

When we were sent down into the country to learn to be good we felt it
was rather good business, because we knew our being sent there was
really only to get us out of the way for a little while, and we knew
right enough that it wasn't a punishment, though Mrs. Blake said it was,
because we had been punished thoroughly for taking the stuffed animals
out and making a jungle on the lawn with them, and the garden hose. And
you cannot be punished twice for the same offence. This is the English
law; at least I think so. And at any rate no one would punish you three
times, and we had had the Malacca cane and the solitary confinement; and
the uncle had kindly explained to us that all ill-feeling between him
and us was wiped out entirely by the bread and water we had endured. And
what with the bread and water and being prisoners, and not being able to
tame any mice in our prisons, I quite feel that we had suffered it up
thoroughly, and now we could start fair.

I think myself that descriptions of places are generally dull, but I
have sometimes thought that was because the authors do not tell you what
you truly want to know. However, dull or not, here goes--because you
won't understand anything unless I tell you what the place was like.

The Moat House was the one we went to stay at. There has been a house
there since Saxon times. It is a manor, and a manor goes on having a
house on it whatever happens. The Moat House was burned down once or
twice in ancient centuries--I don't remember which--but they always
built a new one, and Cromwell's soldiers smashed it about, but it was
patched up again. It is a very odd house: the front door opens straight
into the dining-room, and there are red curtains and a black-and-white
marble floor like a chess-board, and there is a secret staircase, only
it is not secret now--only rather rickety. It is not very big, but there
is a watery moat all round it with a brick bridge that leads to the
front door. Then, on the other side of the moat there is the farm, with
barns and oast-houses and stables, or things like that. And the other
way the garden lawn goes on till it comes to the