It seemed to him that the room was full of children, crowds of them,
an intricate and ever shifting maze. For years he had known no
dealings with the breed, and their movements now were so light and
rapid that it rather bewildered him. They were in and out between the
kitchen, corridor, and bedroom like bits of a fluid puzzle. One moment
a child was beside him, and the next, just as he had a suitable
sentence ready to discharge at it, the place was vacant. A minute
later 'it' appeared through another door, carrying the samovar, or was
on the roof outside struggling with Riquette.
'Oh, there you are!' he exclaimed. 'How you do dart about, to be
sure!'
And the answer, if any, was invariably of the cheeky order--
'One can't keep still here; there's not room enough.'
Or, worse still--
'I must get past you somehow!' This, needless to say, from Monkey, who
first made sure her parents were out of earshot.
But he liked it, for he recognised this proof that he was accepted and
made one of the circle. These were tentative invitations to play. It
made him feel quite larky, though at first he found his machinery of
larking rather stiff. The wheels required oiling. And his first
attempt to chase Miss Impudence resulted in a collision with Jane Anne
carrying a great brown pot of home-made jam for the table.
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