“What a horrid nuisance you are, No. 8, brushing everything down as you go by!  Why can’t you keep out of the way?”

“Oh, you mustn’t come here, No. 8.  Aunt Judy, look! he’s sitting on my doll’s best cloak.  Do tell him to go away.”

“I can’t have you bothering me, No. 8; don’t you see how busy I am, packing?  Get away somewhere else.”

“You should squeeze yourself into less than nothing, and be nowhere, No. 8.”

The suggestion, (uttered with a jocose grin,) came from a small boy who had ensconced himself in the corner of a window, where he was sitting on his heels, painting the Union Jack of a ship in the Illustrated London News.  He had certainly acted on the advice he gave, as nearly as was possible.  Surely no little boy of his age ever got into so small a compass before, or in a position more effectually out of everybody’s possible way.  The window corner led nowhere, and there was nothing in it for anybody to want.

“No. 8, I never saw anything so tiresome as you are.  Why will you poke your nose in where you’re not wanted?  You’re always in the way.”

“‘He poked his flat nose into every place;’”

sung, sotto voce, by the small boy in the window corner.

No. 8 did not stop to dispute about it, though, in point of fact, his nose was not flat, so at least in that respect he did not resemble the duck in the song.

He had not, however, been successful in gaining the attention of his friends down-stairs, so he dawdled off to make an experiment in another quarter.

“Why, you’re not coming into the nursery now, Master No. 8, surely!  I can’t do with you fidgetting about among all the clothes and packing.  There isn’t a minute to spare.  You might keep out of the way till I’ve finished.”

“Now, Master No. 8, you must be off.  There’s no time or room for you in the kitchen this morning.  There’s ever so many things to get ready yet.  Run away as fast as you can.”

“What are you doing in the passages, No. 8?  Don’t you see that you are in everybody’s way?  You had really better go to bed again.”

But the speaker hurried forward, and No. 8 betook himself to the staircase, and sat down exactly in the middle of the middle flight.  And there be amused himself by peeping through the banisters into the hall, where people were passing backwards and forwards in a great fuss; or listening to the talking and noise that were going on in the rooms above.

But be was not “out of the way” there, as he soon learnt.  Heavy steps were presently heard along the landing, and heavy steps began to descend the stairs.  Two men were carrying down a heavy trunk.

“You’ll have to move, young gentleman, if you please,” observed one; “you’re right in the way just there!”

No. 8 descended with all possible speed, and arrived on the mat at the bottom.

“There now, I told you, you were always in the way,” was the greeting he received.  “How stupid it is!  Try under the table, for pity’s sake.”