“Well, Sara, should you like to see the cousins?” asked Pirlaps, when this interesting manoeuvre had been completed and the other Grandmothers began to disperse.  “We’ll be just about in time for the drill.”

“Yes, indeed,” cried Sara, who was very fond of watching drills.  So Pirlaps led her to a level place which he told her was the cousins’ drill-ground.  It was hard and smooth, and marked off with lines like a tennis-court, only much more intricately.  And there were numbers of cousins standing about, each one looking very erect and alert, with his hand on the back of a chair.  Just as Sara came up, the captain of the cousins stepped out in front and called, “Attention!”

The cousins looked so attentive it was almost painful.

Then he called out, “First Cousin once removed!” and the First Cousin marched out very stiffly and set his chair down accurately on the first mark, after which he sat down in it with military precision.  Then the captain called, “Second Cousin once removed!” and the Second Cousin marched out and sat down in the right place quite as impressively.

Well, you can imagine how it went on, as far as Tenth Cousin eighth removed; and after they had gone through it straight the captain began skipping them around.  It was very lively and exciting; but when Pirlaps heard Sara give a little sigh, and asked her, with a twinkle, how she liked it, she was obliged to answer, “I like it, but—­it makes my head turn around.  It’s so much like arithmetic.”

“That’s what Avrillia says,” answered Pirlaps, smiling.  “Well, let’s walk around a bit.  And then I’ll show you the Strained Relations.”

Sara thought that sounded very interesting; and, besides, she was glad to walk after standing still so long.  So they strolled about, enjoying the pleasant afternoon, and the oddity of the people and their ways.  There were any number of step-relatives, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, sitting around on their various steps, or carrying them jauntily under their arms.  She noticed that none of them had a servant to carry them, however, from which she concluded that they were not so well-to-do as Pirlaps.  But then, none of the steps were of chocolate.  They were of various materials, however, even yellow.

Once, in crossing the uncommon, they met one of Pirlaps’ half-sisters.  She was divided lengthwise, and so had only a profile; but, as her profile was very pretty, the effect was not at all unpleasant.  While they were talking to her, one of his half-brothers came up, but he was divided crosswise, and so had no back.  However, from the front, of course, you hardly noticed it.

“Well,” said Pirlaps, at last, glancing at the small clinical thermometer he carried, “we’ll just have time to take a look at the Strained Relations, and then I must get back and help Avrillia vanish the children.”

He led Sara to a distant corner of the uncommon that was fenced off from the rest by a high wire netting.  It looked rather like the high nets about a tennis-court, except that it was made of silver wire, with a mesh as fine as a milk-strainer.  Inside the wire, in a sort of little private park, she could see a number of very haughty-looking persons moving about.