of that tempestuous nursery he gravely went his way, at one moment
fighting lions and tigers, at another being nurse on her afternoon out
(this was a truly astonishing adventure composed of scraps flung to him
from nurse's conversational table and including many incidents that were
far indeed from any nurse's experience), or again, he would be his
mother giving a party, and, in the course of this, a great deal of food
would be eaten, his favourite dishes, treacle pudding and cottage pie,
being always included.

With the exception of his enthusiasm for Lucy he was no sentimentalist.
He hated being kissed, he did not care very greatly for Roger and
Dorothy and Robert, and regarded them as nothing but nuisances when they
interfered with his games or compelled him to join in theirs.

And now this is the story of his Odyssey.


II

It happened on a wet April afternoon. The morning had been fine, a
golden morning with the scent in the air of the showers that had fallen
during the night. Then, suddenly, after midday, the rain came down,
splashing on to the shining pavements as it fell, beating on to the
windows and then running, in little lines, on to the ledges and falling
from there in slow, heavy drops. The sky was black, the statues in the
garden dejected, the almond tree beaten, all the little paths running
with water, and on the garden seats the rain danced like a live thing.

The children--Lucy, Roger, Dorothy, Robert, Bim, and Timothy--were, of
course, in the nursery. The nurse was toasting her toes on the fender