SKUTCH
This is usually called Skutch. He is hoping you will think him quite grown-up and that is why he is standing in such a peculiar attitude. I tried to persuade him to put both feet on the ground while he was being drawn because he kept falling about when he was standing this way, but he would not because he thought he looked more interesting this way. People meeting him for the first time might think he was conceited but he really isn’t—at least not much. He is always teased by his brothers because he is so tall and that has made him rather shy and silent. His great ambition is to be a coat-of-arms when he is grown up and he goes to a studio to practise for this every day. You will see he has two rather darling little hands in two pockets. Now none of the rest of his family have hands—they never have—but he thought they were rather smart things to have so he grew a pair and had some pockets made so that he could put them inside, like this. He can’t use his hands for anything except ornament.
He feeds on self-filling fountain pens with the tops on and unsharpened pencils. He doesn’t like sharpened ones because the points stick in his throat and if anything gets stuck in his throat there is no room for anything to pass it. He has to be very careful about his diet. Once some one made him swallow a box of golfballs for a joke. The lid of the box came off just as it got half-way down his neck, and all the balls came out at once. His appearance was completely altered for some days, and his throat has been rather sore ever since.