_Written the Summer we went abroad for the first time._
It was about then that Hugh John suddenly grew up. He had been
threatening it for a long time, but had always put it off. This time,
however, it was for keeps. We noticed it first when we made Father tell
us stories. Hugh John had grown tired of the "Little Green Man"! Now
this was a thing so terrible to us that we hardly dared to face it. For,
you see, we had been, as it were, brought up on the Little Green Man,
and this was like being false to the very salt we had eaten. And the
crime was specially bad on Hugh John's part. For, you see, he ate such a
lot of salt that the Doctor told him it was bad for his health. However,
because there is no chance of Hugh John reading this book, I will try to
tell the tale just as Father tells it even yet to Margaret the Maid--and
the rest of us who have not grown too old to like such stories.