Suddenly from out the darkness came a stentorian voice, “Right hand, Tomus!” It was Fraulein!  Thomas put out his right hand, and I, putting aside all convention, gave him a real “Sara hug” for the sake of that mother whose door was closed.  It then began to dawn upon me how very unconventional it was of me to be hugging a comparatively strange child, in a perfectly strange house, and I hastily said good-night to the small Thomas and the big Thomas, nurses and Fraulein, and literally ran downstairs, followed of course by the big Thomas.  At the foot of the stairs I ran into the arms of Mr. Dudley.

His exclamation of “Aunt Woggles” was involuntary, I felt sure, and he had every right to visit a sad, tall Mr. Thomas.  But I thought Diana ought to have told me that I was likely to meet him at —­ Well, a stranger’s house; so how could she?  The only thing that consoled me was that in all probability Mr. Dudley would explain my profession in life, and that I had a screw loose.  Yes, that would exactly explain the position.  Otherwise I didn’t exactly know how he could describe me.

Well, Zerlina of course said I was mad.  She didn’t agree with me that the screw could not possibly have been sent back in an envelope with a few words of explanation.  She said she would have bought a nice toy for the child.  What’s the good of a toy to a child when he has lost a screw which he found his very own self, any more than a squeaking rabbit is to a child who has a “lubbly blush”?  That was a lesson I had lately learned.

I didn’t say all that to Zerlina, because, you see, she is a mother, and I couldn’t understand these things.  She was very much surprised at being late for the party, so surprised.  She was full of apologies.

It was so good of me to help her!  Had the darling children enjoyed themselves?

I said, yes, they had, and the adorable mothers, and the delicious Frauleins, and the heavenly mademoiselles.  At this Zerlina looked a little pained, and I was sorry I was cross, but I felt her want of sympathy for Thomas.  But then she had never passed that closed door.

Chapter VII

As a professional aunt must live somewhere, if only to simplify the delivery of telegrams, it is as well perhaps to explain where I live and why.  The answer to the where, is London, and to the why, because it is the best place for all professionals to live in.  Many were the suggestions that I should live in the country.  Careful relatives and good housewives saw a chance of cheap and fresh eggs, cheap and large chickens, and cheap and freshly gathered vegetables, which showed, in the words of Dr. Johnson, a triumph of hope over experience, for I have always found that there are no eggs so dear as those laid by the hens of friends, no chickens so thin as those kept by relatives, no vegetables so expensive as those grown by acquaintances.