Fifty-First Session

Richard was waiting at the corner of the road, and the first thing he said was that he had ‘strained’ his ankle when going downstairs to breakfast. In the playroom he mentioned that he would be fishing today with Daddy. He described their plans in detail and said he hoped to catch a trout: they had not yet a permit for salmon-fishing. Daddy had brought Richard's fishing-rod as well as his own. Richard told Mrs K. that he had bought a large scribbling-pad to draw on at home. It was twice the size of the one Mrs K. provided and he got it cheaply. He wondered whether Mrs K. had been overcharged for her pad. At home he had been drawing railway lines and he was eager to go on with this at once. He decided, however, first to reckon out how many countries everyone had in the earlier ‘empire’ drawings. He put two of the earliest aside, saying that they were not only representing the family, since other colours had been used as well. He was very pleased whenever he found out that Mummy was not badly off, being obviously guilty because in most cases he had more countries than she. After having reckoned this out on a few drawings he gave it up. He also commented on the number of drawings he had made and that the pad had by then been nearly used up. Then he made Drawing 39. While drawing, he told Mrs K. smilingly that something had happened last night in his parents' bedroom. A mouse had eaten two biscuits, but his mother had been too frightened to get out of bed to do something about it, and Richard thought his father, too, had been frightened of the mouse. The mouse had also run up Daddy's fishing-rod. All this he reported with amusement, obviously feeling very superior. If he, Richard, had been there he would have taken his father's slipper and driven the mouse away. He dramatized this