The baby was, to reverse an epigram, an unconscionable time in getting born; but when Gant finally awoke just after ten o’clock next morning, whimpering from tangled nerves, and the quivering shame of dim remembrance, he heard, as he drank the hot coffee Helen brought to him, a loud, long lungy cry above.
“Oh, my God, my God,” he groaned. And he pointed toward the sound. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“I haven’t seen it yet, papa,” Helen answered. “They won’t let us in. But Doctor Cardiac came out and told us if we were good he might bring us a little boy.”
There was a terrific clatter on the tin roof, the scolding country voice of the nurse: Steve dropped like a cat from the porch roof to the lily bed outside Gant’s window.
“Steve, you damned scoundrel,” roared the manor-lord with a momentary return to health, “what in the name of Jesus are you doing?”
The boy was gone over the fence.
“I seen it! I seen it!” his voice came streaking back.
“I seen it too!” screamed Grover, racing through the room and out again in simple exultancy.
“If I catch you younguns on this roof agin,” yelled the country nurse aloft, “I’ll take your hide off you.”
Gant had been momentarily cheered when he heard that his latest heir was a male; but he walked the length of the room now, making endless plaint.
“Oh my God, my God! Did this have to be put upon me in my old age? Another mouth to feed! It’s fearful, it’s awful, it’s croo-el,” and he began to weep affectedly. Then, realizing presently that no one was near enough to be touched by his sorrow, he paused suddenly and precipitated himself toward the door, crossing the dining-room, and, going up the hall, making loud lament:
