Racketty-Packetty House | Page 5

they awful swells! But Lord
Francis can't kick about in his trousers as I can in mine, and neither can
the others. I'll like to see them try to do this,"-- and he turned three
summersaults in the middle of the room and stood on his head on the
biggest hole in the carpet--and wiggled his legs and wiggled his toes at
them until they shouted so with laughing that Ridiklis ran in with a
saucepan in her hand and perspiration on her forehead, because she was
cooking turnips, which was all they had for dinner.
"You mustn't laugh so loud," she cried out. "If we make so much noise
the Tidy Castle people will begin to complain of this being a low
neighborhood and they might insist on moving away."
"Oh! scrump!" said Peter Piper, who sometimes invented doll slang--
though there wasn't really a bit of harm in him. "I wouldn't have them
move away for anything. They are meat and drink to me."
"They are going to have a dinner of ten courses," sighed Ridiklis, "I can
see them cooking it from my scullery window. And I have nothing but
turnips to give you."
"Who cares!" said Peter Piper, "Let's have ten courses of turnips and
pretend each course is exactly like the one they are having at the
Castle."
"I like turnips almost better than anything--almost--perhaps not quite,"
said Gustibus. "I can eat ten courses of turnips like a shot."

"Let's go and find out what their courses are," said Meg and Peg and
Kilmanskeg, "and then we will write a menu on a piece of pink tissue
paper."
[Transcriber's Note: See picture peter_piper.jpg]
And if you'll believe it, that was what they did. They divided their
turnips into ten courses and they called the first one--"Hors d'oeuvres,"
and the last one "Ices," with a French name, and Peter Piper kept
jumping up from the table and pretending he was a footman and
flourishing about in his flapping rags of trousers and announcing the
names of the dishes in such a grand way that they laughed till they
nearly died, and said they never had had such a splendid dinner in their
lives, and that they would rather live behind the door and watch the
Tidy Castle people than be the Tidy Castle people themselves.
And then of course they all joined hands and danced round and round
and kicked up their heels for joy, because they always did that
whenever there was the least excuse for it--and quite often when there
wasn't any at all, just because it was such good exercise and worked off
their high spirits so that they could settle down for a while.
This was the way things went on day after day. They almost lived at
their windows. They watched the Tidy Castle family get up and be
dressed by their maids and valets in different clothes almost every day.
They saw them drive out in their carriages, and have parties, and go to
balls. They all nearly had brain fever with delight the day they watched
Lady Gwendolen and Lady Muriel and Lady Doris, dressed in their
Court trains and feathers, going to be presented at the first
Drawing-Room.
After the lovely creatures had gone the whole family sat down in a
circle round the Racketty-Packetty House library fire, and Ridiklis read
aloud to them about Drawing-Rooms, out of a scrap of the Lady's
Pictorial she had found, and after that they had a Court Drawing-Room
of their own, and they made tissue-paper trains and glass bead crowns
for diamond tiaras, and sometimes Gustibus pretended to be the Royal
family, and the others were presented to him and kissed his hand, and
then the others took turns and he was presented. And suddenly the most
delightful thing occurred to Peter Piper. He thought it would be rather
nice to make them all into lords and ladies and he did it by touching
them on the shoulder with the drawing-room poker which he

straightened because it was so crooked that it was almost bent double.
It is not exactly the way such things are done at Court, but Peter Piper
thought it would do-- and at any rate it was great fun. So he made them
all kneel down in a row and he touched each on the shoulder with the
poker and said:
"Rise up, Lady Meg and Lady Peg and Lady Kilmanskeg and Lady
Ridiklis of Racketty-Packetty House-and also the Right Honorable
Lord Gustibus Rags!" And they all jumped up at once and made bows
and curtsied to each other. But they made Peter Piper into a Duke, and
he was called the Duke of Tags. He knelt down on the big hole in the
carpet and each one of