ONCE there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids. They were sent to the house of an old Professor who lived in the heart of the country, ten miles from the nearest railway station and two miles from the nearest post office. He had no wife and he lived in a very large house with a housekeeper called Mrs. Macready and three servants. (Their names were Ivy, Margaret and Betty, but they do not come into the story much.) He himself was a very old man with shaggy white hair which grew over most of his face as well as on his head, and they liked him almost at once; but on the first evening when he came out to meet them at the front door he was so odd-looking that Lucy (who was the youngest) was a little afraid of him, and Edmund (who was the next youngest) wanted to laugh and had to keep on pretending he was blowing his nose to hide it.
As soon as they had said good night to the Professor and gone upstairs on the first night, the boys came into the girls' room and they all talked it over.
“We've fallen on our feet and no mistake, ” said Peter. “This is going to be perfectly splendid. That old chap will let us do anything we like.”
“I think he's an old dear, ” said Susan.
“Oh, come off it! ” said Edmund, who was tired and pretending not to be tired, which always made him bad-tempered. “Don't go on talking like that.”
“Like what? ” said Susan; “and anyway, it's time you were in bed.”
“Trying to talk like Mother, ” said Edmund. “And who are you to say when I'm to go to bed? Go to bed yourself.”
“Hadn't we all better go to bed? ” said Lucy. “There's sure to be a row if we're heard talking here.”
“No there won't, ” said Peter. “I tell you this is the sort of house where no one's going to mind what we do. Anyway, they won't hear us. It's about ten minutes' walk from here down to that dining-room, and any amount of stairs and passages in between.”