d rice
pudding. You'll come? Eh!--what?'

We said we should be delighted, if Father had no objection, because that
is the proper thing to say, and the poor Indian, I mean the Uncle, said,
'No, your Father won't object--he's coming too, bless your soul!'

We all got Christmas presents for the Uncle. The girls made him a
handkerchief case and a comb bag, out of some of the pieces of silk he
had given them. I got him a knife with three blades; H. O. got a siren
whistle, a very strong one, and Dicky joined with me in the knife, and
Noel would give the Indian ivory box that Uncle's friend had sent on the
wonderful Fairy Cab day. He said it was the very nicest thing he had,
and he was sure Uncle wouldn't mind his not having bought it with his
own money.

I think Father's business must have got better--perhaps Uncle's friend
put money in it and that did it good, like feeding the starving. Anyway
we all had new suits, and the girls had the green silk from India made
into frocks, and on Boxing Day we went in two cabs--Father and the girls
in one, and us boys in the other.

We wondered very much where the Indian Uncle lived, because we had not
been told. And we thought when the cab began to go up the hill towards
the Heath that perhaps the Uncle lived in one of the poky little houses
up at the top of Greenwich. But the cab went right over the Heath and in
at some big gates, and through a shrubbery all white with frost like
a fairy forest, because it was Christmas time. And at last we stopped
before one of those jolly, big, ugly red houses with a lot of windows,
that are so comfortable inside, and on the steps was the Indian Uncle,
looking very big and grand, in a blue cloth coat and yellow sealskin
waistcoat, with a bunch of seals hanging from it.

'I wonder whether he has taken a place as butler here?' said Dicky.

'A poor, broken-down man--'

Noel thought it was very likely, because he knew that in these big
houses there were always thousands of stately butlers.

The Uncle came down the steps and opened the cab door himself, which I
don't think butlers would expect to have to do. And he took us in. It
was a lovely hall, with bear and tiger skins on the floor, and a big
clock with the faces of the sun and moon dodging out when it was day or
night, and Father Time with a scythe coming out at the hours, and the
name on it was 'Flint. Ashford. 1776'; and there was a fox eating a
stuffed duck in a glass case, and horns of s