I saw this unpacking with a sort of provisional relief.  I hung about in the nursery for quite an unconscionable time...

That happened six months ago.  And now I am beginning to believe it is all right.  The kitten had only the magic natural to all kittens, and the soldiers seemed as steady a company as any colonel could desire.  And Gip——?

The intelligent parent will understand that I have to go cautiously with Gip.

But I went so far as this one day.  I said, “How would you like your soldiers to come alive, Gip, and march about by themselves?”

“Mine do,” said Gip.  “I just have to say a word I know before I open the lid.”

“Then they march about alone?”

“Oh, quite, dadda.  I shouldn’t like them if they didn’t do that.”

I displayed no unbecoming surprise, and since then I have taken occasion to drop in upon him once or twice, unannounced, when the soldiers were about, but so far I have never discovered them performing in anything like a magical manner...

It’s so difficult to tell.

There’s also a question of finance.  I have an incurable habit of paying bills.  I have been up and down Regent Street several times looking for that shop.  I am inclined to think, indeed, that in that matter honour is satisfied, and that, since Gip’s name and address are known to them, I may very well leave it to these people, whoever they may be, to send in their bill in their own time.

  XXX.

  THE EMPIRE OF THE ANTS.

When Captain Gerilleau received instructions to take his new gunboat, the Benjamin Constant, to Badama on the Batemo arm of the Guaramadema and there assist the inhabitants against a plague of ants, he suspected the authorities of mockery.  His promotion had been romantic and irregular, the affections of a prominent Brazilian lady and the captain’s liquid eyes had played a part in the process, and the Diario and O Futuro had been lamentably disrespectful in their comments.  He felt he was to give further occasion for disrespect.

He was a Creole, his conceptions of etiquette and discipline were pure-blooded Portuguese, and it was only to Holroyd, the Lancashire engineer who had come over with the boat, and as an exercise in the use of English—­his “th” sounds were very uncertain—­that he opened his heart.

“It is in effect,” he said, “to make me absurd!  What can a man do against ants?  Dey come, dey go.”

“They say,” said Holroyd, “that these don’t go.  That chap you said was a Sambo——­”

“Zambo;—­it is a sort of mixture of blood.”

“Sambo.  He said the people are going!”

The captain smoked fretfully for a time.  “Dese tings ’ave to happen,” he said at last.  “What is it?  Plagues of ants and suchlike as God wills.  Dere was a plague in Trinidad—­the little ants that carry leaves.  Orl der orange-trees, all der mangoes!  What does it matter?  Sometimes ant armies come into your houses—­fighting ants; a different sort.  You go and they clean the house.  Then you come back again;—­the house is clean, like new!  No cockroaches, no fleas, no jiggers in the floor.”