Nine Unlikely Tales

MATILDA’S ears were red and shiny. So were her cheeks. Her hands were red too. This was because Pridmore had washed her. It was not the usual washing, which makes you clean and comfortable, but the “thorough good wash,” which makes you burn and smart till you wish you could be like the poor little savages who do not know anything, and run about bare in the sun, and only go into the water when they are hot.Matilda wished she could have been born in a savage tribe instead of at Brixton.“Little savages,” she said, “don’t have their ears washed thoroughly, and they don’t have new dresses that are prickly in the insides round their arms, and cut them round the neck. Do they, Pridmore?”But Pridmore only said, “Stuff and nonsense,” and then she said, “don’t wriggle so, child, for goodness’ sake.”