but you must learn to eat decently, and I thought this might serve you
as a lesson and a reminder."

Keith said nothing. He sat looking at that piece of wood as if it were a
dragon that had swallowed the whole Christmas in a single gulp. He
wanted to cry, but for the first time he seemed to feel a pride that
forbade him to do so....

"Master Keith Wellander," the father read out again with evident haste
and in a voice which he tried to make very jolly, "When beaten in the
open field, this will be my trusty shield."

It was _the_ package--and the trough was forgotten.

The boy trembled with excitement. His hands tore vainly at the paper
cover, which, in the end, had to be removed by the father.

On the table, fully revealed at last, stood a real fortress of
cardboard, with a drawbridge that could be raised, and a tower in the
centre, and at the top of it a flagstaff flying the Swedish colours.

It was his heart's most cherished desire, the thing that had seemed so
unattainable that he had deemed it useless to whisper it into his
mother's ear.

For a long while he did not move at all, but just looked and looked,
seemingly afraid to touch the new toy. Then a warm flood of joy shot
through him, and suddenly he was seized by an irresistible impulse to
kiss his father--which was a most unusual endearment between them. As he
put his hand on the table to get off the chair, it touched the trough,