Sometimes Mrs.Morel would say: "You ought to tell your father." Paul won a prize in a competition in a child's paper.

Everybody was highly jubilant.
"Now you'd better tell your father when he comes in," said Mrs.Morel.
"You know how be carries on and says he's never told anything." "All right," said Paul.

But he would almost rather have forfeited the prize than have to tell his father.
"I've won a prize in a competition, dad," he said.

Morel turned round to him.
"Have you, my boy?
What sort of a competition ?" "Oh, nothing--about famous women." "And how much is the prize, then, as you've got ?" "It's a book." "Oh, indeed!" "About birds." "Hm--hm!" And that was all.

Conversation was impossible between the father and any other member of the family.