just as they were sitting down to tea--or rather cocoa--for with the
exception of Bert all the children expressed a preference for the
latter beverage. Bert would have liked to have cocoa also, but hearing
that the grown-ups were going to have tea, he thought it would be more
manly to do the same. This question of having tea or cocoa for tea
became a cause of much uproarious merriment on the part of the
children, who asked each other repeatedly which they liked best, 'tea
tea?' or 'cocoa tea?' They thought it so funny that they said it over
and over again, screaming with laughter all the while, until Tommy got
a piece of cake stuck in his throat and became nearly black in the
face, and then Philpot had to turn him upside down and punch him in the
back to save him from choking to death. This rather sobered the
others, but for some time afterwards whenever they looked at each other
they began to laugh afresh because they thought it was such a good joke.

When they had filled themselves up with the 'cocoa-tea' and cakes and
bread and jam, Elsie Linden and Nellie Newman helped to clear away the
cups and saucers, and then Owen lit the candles on the Christmas tree
and distributed the toys to the children, and a little while afterwards
Philpot--who had got a funny-looking mask out of one of the
bon-bons--started a fine game pretending to be a dreadful wild animal
which he called a Pandroculus, and crawling about on all fours, rolled
his goggle eyes and growled out he must have a little boy or girl to
eat for his supper.

He looked so terrible that although they knew it was only a joke they
were almost afraid of him, and ran away laughing and screaming to
shelter themselves behind Nora or Owen; but all the same, whenever
Philpot left off playing, they entreated him to 'be it again', and so
he had to keep on being a Pandroculus, until exhaustion compelled him
to return to his natural form.

After this they all sat round the table and had a game of cards;
'Snap', they called it, but nobody paid much attention to the rules of
the game: everyone seemed to think that the principal thing to do was
to kick up as much row as possible. After a while Philpot suggested a
change to 'Beggar my neighbour', and won quite a lot of cards before
they found out that he had hidden all the jacks in the pocket of his
coat, and then they mobbed him for a cheat. He might have been
seriously injured if it had not been for Bert, who created a