Tummis loved animals, he loved all the animals that were so numerous about the house, cockroach or rat or bat or cat or blat, and he collected them, he brought them into his rooms, and whenever he had collected too large a family Cousin Moorcus should come to his room and disperse them, often smiting one or two or ten in the process. This may have been the cause of his still wearing corduroy shorts a good year longer than was usual and his knees, still on display, were rather knobbly and embarrassed and they so longed, longed for grey flannel that he kept his hands upon them whenever he could, as if to cover them up, but which actually made them appear all the more naked with those big hands (something like boiled tripe) about them. I suppose Cousin Tummis was rather an anxious creature altogether.

‘No school then,’ I cried to Tummis. ‘A day of rest!’

‘Yes, but, Clod, man, listen up a moment; I should not go home if I were you.’

‘It may be two rooms unkempt and unclean to you, but to me, it’s a palace.’

‘It’s not that, Clod.’

‘Shall we go to your menagerie, then, to caw and shriek with it, old drip?’

‘It’s Moorcus, Clod.’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Moorcus, is it?’

Cousin Moorcus, school prefect, my first cousin, the biggest and most handsome of the Iremonger boys, had about him a medal with ribbon that said FOR VALOUR which he wore most unusually out on permanent display. This was the only particular object that had never spoken to me, not a whisper, not a sound; it was most stubbornly silent. But this was a relatively recent phenomenon, just six months ago Moorcus had kept his birth object hidden about his person, and I had often heard it groaning the words ‘Rowland Collis.’ But suddenly, half a year since, Moorcus sported a medal upon his chest, declared this his birth object, and had many locks put upon the door of his apartment. And after that I never heard Rowland Collis no more.

‘Cousin Moorcus,’ repeated Tummis, and held up his hands which were bloody about the knuckles.

‘What has he done?’

‘Not much at all this time, as you see,’ said Tummis, casually examining his small wounds. ‘He was busy enough though, he’s been denting top hats and banging heads, right in front of the masters, and they did nothing to stop him.’

‘They never do, Tummis, they are frightened of him.’