“Eliza! My wife! Oh, baby, say that you forgive me!” He went up the stairs, sobbing laboriously.
“Don’t you let him in here!” cried the object of this prayer sharply with quite remarkable energy.
“Tell him he can’t come in now,” said Cardiac, in his dry voice, to the nurse, staring intently at the scales. “We’ve nothing but milk to drink, anyway,” he added.
Gant was outside.
“Eliza, my wife! Be merciful, I beg of you. If I had known—”
“Yes,” said the country nurse opening the door rudely, “if the dog hadn’t stopped to lift his leg he’d a-caught the rabbit! You get away from here!” And she slammed it violently in his face.
He went downstairs with hang-dog head, but he grinned slyly as he thought of the nurse’s answer. He wet his big thumb quickly on his tongue.
“Merciful God!” he said, and grinned. Then he set up his caged lament.
“I think this will do,” said Cardiac, holding up something red, shiny, and puckered by its heels, and smacking it briskly on its rump, to liven it a bit.
The heir apparent had, as a matter of fact, made his debut completely equipped with all appurtenances, dependences, screws, cocks, faucets, hooks, eyes, nails, considered necessary for completeness of appearance, harmony of parts, and unity of effect in this most energetic, driving, and competitive world. He was the complete male in miniature, the tiny acorn from which the mighty oak must grow, the heir of all ages, the inheritor of unfulfilled renown, the child of progress, the darling of the budding Golden Age and, what’s more, Fortune and her Fairies, not content with well-nigh smothering him with these blessings of time and family, saved him up carefully until Progress was rotten-ripe with glory.
“Well, what are you going to call it?” inquired Dr. Cardiac, referring thus, with shocking and medical coarseness, to this most royal imp.
Eliza was better tuned to cosmic vibrations. With a full, if inexact,
