When three teenage daughters of the 21st-century belle-monde-Faustina, Melissa and Lysistætia—each decide to acquire a pageboy as the latest fashion accessory, life changes drastically for the youths most closely concerned. Well-fed, well-housed and (particularly) well-dressed, the three pageboys are nevertheless also extremely well-disciplined, subject to frequent and humiliating corporal punishment at their young mistresses' whims. What follows over the next eighteen months is a prolonged--and profound--learning experience for all concerned.

With 13 original plates by Curtus.

An excerpt from the book:
There was no more to be said or done—the groundwork of humiliation had surely been laid. She weighed the tapette in her right hand, raised it, chose the aiming point (not a difficult task in this position: Delilah had been right) and struck with energy.

A whish!, a resonant thwack! and the instant appearance of a rectangle of dead-white skin full across the broadest part of Anni's faintly pink bottom. A second later—Lysis, watching carefully, saw it happen--the area of unnatural pallor had vanished, to be replaced, as the blood rushed back into the beaten zone, by its exact equivalent in blazing scarlet. Anni, who until now had only wriggled and mewed under punishment, brayed and jerked his body nearly horizontal on her lap. His feet flew up off the floor. His hands inadvertently (and inexcusably) shot behind him as he frantically attempted to soothe his scorching flesh—if not to ward off another stroke.

"Remove your hands," said Lysis sweetly. The thrill of that first stroke was to remain with her for a long time. He obeyed. "If you move just once more I shall have two of the maids hold your arms and legs. Jenny, come here. And you, too, Amy. Stand ready, one each side."

She paused, and struck again. The tapette's flight was perfect and the impact almost exactly square. The sound of impact was the same rich, fulfilling thwack. He did not move--though she felt his body jerk--and his limbs remained where they should be; while the noise he made was more of a muffled yowl than the full-blooded bellow which had been his first (surprised) response to this marvellous instrument. This time the pale rectangle appeared slightly below the first mark, but it was not quite so pale, nor did it turn as vividly red afterwards. At the same time Anni's bottom as a whole had already begun to flush a deeper shade of pink. The "blast zone" expanded even as she watched. She did watch, taking her time, while the colours evened out. Then again the whish! and thwack!, and the immediate vocal response. He was growing used to it--a little--and the volume of these responses was heroically diminishing. Let's see if he can keep it up, thought Lysis, administering another sharp stinger, this time deliberately angled and cannily placed to catch the outer part of the far buttock. But he did keep it up, for that smack, the next, and the two that followed, so she made sure the eighth was the hardest yet and right across the starting-point. The stroke was delivered with her full force and it shot Anni straight off her lap and on to the floor, roaring like a wild beast and clutching his bottom with both hands.

"What a baby!" remarked Lysis. "Jenny, Amy, do what I told you."