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BILL THE MINDER

LD CRISPIN, the mushroom gatherer, and his good wife Chloe had ten children, and nine of them were bad-tempered. There was Chad, the youngest and most bad-tempered of the lot, Hannibal and Quentin the twins, Randall with the red head, Noah, Ratchett the short-sighted, Nero the worrit, weeping Biddulph and Knut. The only good-tempered child was a little girl named Boadicea.

It is well known that a boy usually takes after his father, and a girl after her mother, and these children were no exception to the rule, for the boys 2