"Oh bother," said Denny, "I wish you'd not interrupt me. I don't care who it was. I only want to say it's very stupid of Fritz not to eat his egg, when _somebody_ made them for us, extra you know, because we're going away, and I think Fritz is very stupid."
"Come, Herr Fritz," said Lisa, encouragingly, "try and eat. You will be so hungry."
"I can't," said Fritz, "I've got a horrid feeling just like when mother took me to have that big tooth out. I feel all shaky and cruddley."
"Yes, _I_ know," said Denny, going on with _her_ breakfast all the same, "but eating's the best thing to make it go away. I felt just that way the day I broke grandfather's hotness measure, and mother said I must tell him myself. I couldn't eat a bit of dinner, and I sat on the stair all _screwged_ up, waiting for him to go to the study."
"How dedful!" said Baby, with great feeling. But neither Fritz nor Celia seemed to think much of Denny's sufferings. No one had ever seen her nerves disturbed, and they did not therefore much believe in her having any.
"Grandfather's _what_ did you say?" asked Celia.
"His hotness measure--the little glass pipe thing with a blob that goes up and down. He's got another now, you know."
"You mean his thermometer; you really should learn the proper names of things," said Celia, "you're quite big enough."
Denny would probably not have taken this in good part, though the "quite big enough" at the end was very much to her taste, but there was no time _this_ morning for squabbling.
"Quick, quick, mine children," said Lisa, "the cart with the luggage is 'way, and the Herr Grandpapa is buttoning his coat."
"And Fritz hasn't eaten his egg!" said Denny, eyeing it dolefully, as Lisa was fastening her jacket.
"I _couldn't_," said Fritz. "There'll be sandwiches or something in the train--sure to be. Now come on; let's see what have I got to look after. Only Tim and Peepy-Snoozle. I _couldn't_ lose my satchel, you see, for its strapped on me. Much more sensible than _girls_, who have to carry their bags over their arms."
And Fritz, in a new ulster, very long and rather stiff, and feeling, to tell the truth, a little uncomfortable at first, as new things generally do, stalked off--I don't think he _could_ have run!--with the air of a very big man indeed.