they lacked it, I decided to wait until he could
walk, when it would be more easy to waylay him.
However, he was a cautious little gorbal who, after
many threats to rise, always seemed to come to the
conclusion that he might do worse than remain
where he was, and when he had completed his first
year I lost patience with him.

"When I was his age," I said to Irene, "I was
running about." I consulted them casually about
this matter at the club, and they had all been run-
ning about at a year old.

I made this nurse the following offer: If she
would bring the dilatory boy to my rooms and
leave him there for half-an-hour I would look at
him. At first Mary, to whom the offer was passed
on, rejected it with hauteur, but presently she wa-
vered, and the upshot was that Irene, looking scorn-
ful and anxious, arrived one day with the peram-
bulator. Without casting eyes on its occupant, I
pointed Irene to the door: "In half-an-hour," I said.

She begged permission to remain, and promised
to turn her back, and so on, but I was obdurate,
and she then delivered herself of a passionately
affectionate farewell to her charge, which was really
all directed against me, and ended with these power-
ful words: "And if he takes off your socks, my
pretty, may he be blasted for evermore."

"I shall probably take off her socks," I said
carelessly to this.

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