This is just to show you that I know my job. But mark now how Fate rushed me on to destruction.
"Uncle James," said Lillah, "I love you!"
"Can we go and see the tin soldiers before they go to bed?" said Lillah.
Oh, this was too simple: a nice quiet look at the guardians of Whitehall, with perhaps a glimpse for the infant mind of the vast resources of the British Empire; a word in season, perhaps, from Uncle James; and a detailed report to Margaret of instruction combined with amusement.
"This," I said, as Phyllis gazed round-eyed at one of the motionless warriors--"this is but a symbol of the dignity of that great Empire upon which the sun----"
"Soldiers," said Phyllis with a wisdom beyond her years, "like girls to look at them ever so long."
Then she went away to Lillah, and I saw them with their heads close together. A wonderful thing, the child-mind. Only beginning perhaps, but they were learning doubtless to think imperially. The foundation of that pride of race----? I broke the thread of thought and looked up. Instantly I was gibbering with horror.
Phyllis, standing on tiptoe and clinging precariously to his saddle-cloth, was dropping a roll of paper neatly into the jackboot of Hercules.
"Phyllis!" I gasped. "What are you doing?"
"That's what Nannie does," she said, without a blush for her sex. "I put 'I love you.--PHYLLIS.' Do you think he'll be pleased?"
I seized both girls and hurried into the Park. My soul cried out for the open spaces. I stole a look at Hercules over my shoulder, but he was granite.
On Olympus the Olympians are above shame.
"Phyllis," I said gravely, "don't you think that was very naughty of you?"
"No," said that small Delilah firmly; "soldiers like it."
"And soldiers ought to have what they like, oughtn't they?"
"If I had done that I should feel very much ashamed of myself," I said.
"Well, you didn't," said Lillah, and that finished it.
They evidently had an offensive and defensive alliance against this sort of thing.
"Sand,", echoed Lillah, and both children were gone.
They had just noticed the present possibilities of the empty lake as a substitute for Margate. Two best frocks! Essentially a moment for efficiency.
I stepped firmly across the railings. And there the British Government stepped in. I turned to regard a policeman (out-size).