distinguished courtesy, Anthea told herself. 'I am delighted to
see you. Won't you sit down? No, not there; allow me to move
that papyrus.'

He cleared a chair, and stood smiling and looking kindly through
his large, round spectacles.

'He treats us like grown-ups,' whispered Robert, 'and he doesn't
seem to know how many of us there are.'

'Hush,' said Anthea, 'it isn't manners to whisper. You say,
Cyril--go ahead.'

'We're very sorry to disturb you,' said Cyril politely, 'but we
did knock three times, and you didn't say "Come in", or "Run away
now", or that you couldn't be bothered just now, or to come when
you weren't so busy, or any of the things people do say when you
knock at doors, so we opened it. We knew you were in because we
heard you sneeze while we were waiting.'

'Not at all,' said the gentleman; 'do sit down.'

'He has found out there are four of us,' said Robert, as the
gentleman cleared three more chairs. He put the things off them
carefully on the floor. The first chair had things like bricks
that tiny, tiny birds' feet have walked over when the bricks were
soft, only the marks were in regular lines. The second chair had
round things on it like very large, fat, long, pale beads. And
the last chair had a pile of dusty papers on it. The children sat
down.