Page:Avon Fantasy Reader 05.djvu/31

RV 31 (Rh) could have forgiven his lack of clothes if he had been less ugly. Without doubt he was hideous. His nose was a shapeless, protruding lump; his lips were thick, and his hair was represented by a collection of knobs. The one redeeming feature was his size; he measured just two feet and a half, and could stand unsupported in the bath of Condy's fluid to which he was subjected. But I thought my sister wrong in punishing Janey for her tears; the contrast between Sambo and Cicely White's gay Parisienne was too great.

For three whole days Sambo remained unnoticed and uncared for, in the engineering supplement. During that period Mary in her leisure moments made a few alterations in a scarlet petticoat she had originally intended for a youthful inhabitant of Uganda.

Clothed in this garment, Sambo looked uglier than before. Janey would not come near him. She hated him. He was not a nice doll. She even asked Mary to take him away. But my sister had never spoiled her nephews and nieces. She drew a graphic if inaccurate picture of Arthur's surprise and resentment if he knew the manner in which his gift had been received.

Her authority, but not her arguments, prevailed. After an altogether unreasonable amount of crying, even in so sensitive a child as Janey, Sambo's rights were acknowledged.

Sambo was a name for which Janey was not responsible. If she had been left to herself she would have called the doll IT, and nothing more. But Mary is one of those people who believe that all dogs should be called Rover and all canaries Dick. When Sambo arrived there was never any doubt in my mind as to the name; my diffident suggestion of Lobengula was contemptuously dismissed on the ground that that individual came from an altogether different part of Africa.

The doll, at the period of his adoption, had fourteen brothers and sisters of different nationalities. As was natural, he took his place at the bottom of the class, was the last to be washed, the first to be put to bed, and if the plates and cups gave out at tea time, he was the one to suffer.

Sambo arrived at the beginning of October; by the end of the month a change had set in. One day I surprised Janey at tea. Sambo was sitting in the fourteenth place with the last cup and saucer before him, and Gulielma Maria, a plain but well-meaning doll, was going supperless to bed.

Needless to say, I accused my niece of injustice and favouritism. She