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But I didn’t see you in the picture,” said Mary Poppins.

      “Ah, I was behind the tree,” explained the Waiter.

      “Won’t you sit down?” said Mary Poppins politely.

      “Waiters never sit down, Moddom,” said the man, but he seemed pleased at being asked.

      “Your whelks, Mister!” he said, pushing a plate of them over to the Match-Man. “And your Pin!” He dusted the pin on his napkin and handed it to the Match-Man.

      They began upon the afternoon-tea, and the Waiter stood beside them to see they had everything they needed.

      “We’re having them after all,” said Mary Poppins in a loud whisper, as she began on the heap of raspberry-jam-cakes.

      “Golly!” agreed the Match-Man, helping himself to two of the largest.

      “Tea?” said the Waiter, filling a large cup for each of them from the urn.

      They drank it and had two cups more each, and then, for luck, they finished the pile of raspberry-jam-cakes. After that they got up and brushed the crumbs off.

      “There is Nothing to Pay,” said the Waiter, before they had time to ask for the bill. “It is a Pleasure. You will find the Merry-go-Round just over there!” And he waved his hand to a little gap in the trees, where Mary Poppins and the Match-Man could see several wooden horses whirling round on a stand.

      “That’s funny,” said she. “I don’t remember seeing that in the picture, either.”

      “Ah,” said the Match-Man, who hadn’t remembered it himself, “it was in the Background, you see!”

      The Merry-go-Round was just slowing down as they approached it. They leapt upon it, Mary Poppins on a black horse and the Match-Man on a grey. And when the music started again and they began to move, they rode all the way to Yarmouth* and back, because that was the place they both wanted most to see.

      When they returned it was nearly dark and the Waiter was watching for them.

      “I’m very sorry, Moddom and Mister,*” he said politely, “but we close at Seven. Rules, you know. May I show you the Way Out?”

      They nodded as he flourished his table-napkin and walked on in front of them through the wood.

      “It’s a wonderful picture you’ve drawn this time, Bert,” said Mary Poppins, putting her hand through the Match-Man’s arm and drawing her cloak about her.

      “Well, I did my best, Mary,” said the Match-Man modestly. But you could see he was really very pleased with himself indeed.

      Just then the Waiter stopped in front of them, beside a large white doorway that looked as though it were made of thick chalk lines.

      “Here you are!” he said. “This is the Way Out.”

      “Goodbye, and thank you,” said Mary Poppins, shaking his hand.

      “Moddom, goodbye!” said the Waiter, bowing so low that his head knocked against his knees.

      He nodded to the Match-Man, who cocked his head on one side and closed one eye at the Waiter, which was his way of bidding him farewell. Then Mary Poppins stepped through the white doorway and the Match-Man followed her.

      And as they went, the feather dropped from her hat and the silk cloak from her shoulders and the diamonds from her shoes. The bright clothes of the Match-Man faded, and his straw hat turned into his old ragged cap again. Mary Poppins turned and looked at him, and she knew at once what had happened. Standing on the pavement she gazed at him for a long minute, and then her glance explored the wood behind him for the Waiter. But the Waiter was nowhere to be seen. There was nobody in the picture. Nothing moved there. Even the Merry-go-Round had disappeared. Only the still trees and the grass and the unmoving little patch of sea remained.

      But Mary Poppins and the Match-Man smiled at one another. They knew, you see, what lay behind the trees…

* * *

      When she came back from her Day Out, Jane and Michael came running to meet her.

      “Where have you been?” they asked her.

      “In Fairyland,” said Mary Poppins.

      “Did you see Cinderella?” said Jane.

      “Huh, Cinderella? Not me,” said Mary Poppins, contemptuously. “Cinderella, indeed!”

      “Or Robinson Crusoe?” asked Michael.

      “Robinson Crusoe – pooh!” said Mary Poppins rudely.

      “Then how could you have been there? It couldn’t have been our Fairyland!”

      Mary Poppins gave a superior sniff.

      “Don’t you know,” she said pityingly, “that everybody’s got a Fairyland of their own?”

      And with another sniff she went upstairs to take off her white gloves and put the umbrella away.

      Laughing Gas*

      “Are you quite sure he will be at home?” said Jane, as they got off the Bus, she and Michael and Mary Poppins.

      “Would my Uncle ask me to bring you to tea if he intended to go out, I’d like to know?” said Mary Poppins, who was evidently very offended by the question. She was wearing her blue coat with the silver buttons and the blue hat to match, and on the days when she wore these it was the easiest thing in the world to offend her.

      All three of them were on the way to pay a visit to Mary Poppins’s uncle, Mr Wigg,* and Jane and Michael had looked forward to the trip for so long that they were more than half afraid that Mr Wigg might not be in, after all.

      “Why is he called Mr Wigg – does he wear one?” asked Michael, hurrying along beside Mary Poppins.

      “He is called Mr Wigg because Mr Wigg is his name. And he doesn’t wear one. He is bald,” said Mary Poppins. “And if I have any more questions we will just go Back Home.” And she sniffed her usual sniff of displeasure.

      Jane and Michael looked at each other and frowned. And the frown meant: “Don’t let’s ask her anything else or we’ll never get there.”

      Mary Poppins put her hat straight at the Tobacconist’s Shop at the corner. It had one of those curious windows where there seem to be three of you instead of one, so that if you look long enough at them you begin to feel you are not yourself but a whole crowd of somebody else. Mary Poppins sighed with pleasure, however, when she saw three of herself, each wearing a blue coat with silver buttons and a blue hat to match. She thought it was such a lovely sight that she wished there had been a dozen of her or even thirty. The more Mary Poppins the better.

      “Come along,” she said sternly, as though they had kept her waiting. Then they turned the corner and pulled the bell of Number Three, Robertson Road. Jane and Michael could hear it faintly echoing from a long way away and they knew that in one minute, or two at the most, they would be having tea with Mary Poppins’s uncle, Mr Wigg, for the first time ever.

      “If he’s in, of course,” Jane said to Michael in a whisper.

      At that moment the door flew open and a thin, watery-looking lady appeared.

      “Is he in?” said Michael quickly.

      “I’ll thank you,” said Mary Poppins, giving him a terrible glance, “to let me do the talking.”

      “How do you do, Mrs Wigg,” said Jane politely.

      “Mrs Wigg!” said the thin lady, in a voice even thinner that herself. “How dare you call me Mrs Wigg? No, thank you! I’m plain Miss Persimmon and proud of it. Mrs Wigg indeed!” She seemed to be quite upset, and they thought Mr Wigg must be a very odd person if Miss Persimmon was so glad not to be Mrs Wigg.

      “Straight up and first door on the landing,” said Miss Persimmon, and she went hurrying away down the passage saying: “Mrs Wigg indeed!” to herself

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