When a new-comer inquired who the local Brigadier was, waggish folk would reply, "Mrs. Crickford-Crocker ". Her husband commanded the Brigade, and she commanded her husband. In person Mrs. Crickford-Crocker was imposing not to say terrifying (unless really annoyed), being very tall, very broad, and very bony. Her cheek-bones were, like her thoughts, large and lofty, her hair was scant and sandy, her teeth obtrusive, and her eye bleak and piercing, a perfect gimlet.
The Brigade feared God and Mrs. Crickford-Crocker—save that in some cases it reversed the order of precedence. . . .
"Yes," agreed Buster, "and ferocious enough to be my grandfather. . . . I lived in ghastly terror of my grandfather when I was a child—of him and his black familiar, Woby Tijer."
"Wobitijer? " repeated Mummy, puzzled.
"Yes, Woby Tijer. He haunted my days and made my nights a terror and a night-mare. . . . My grandfather never struck me, never punished me in any way, never even threatened me—except to fix me with his awful eye (an
