Napoleon’s exile invoked to stand for banishment to the nursery. But the visitor deserved the rudeness. She had been enumerating the endless faults of the male sex, including lack of sensibility or consideration. She then swirled her silk gown and sent the boy’s carefully laid out tin soldier battle formation flying for a six. And she wasn’t even sensitive or considerate enough to apologize!

‘Rudeness to visitors was an unpardonable sin, and in two seconds I had my marching orders, and was sullenly wending my way to the St. Helena of the nursery.’

Source: Kenneth Grahame, Dream Days, illus. by Maxfield Parrish (Edin.: Paul Harris Publishing, 1983), p. 124