Part 3 (1/2)
”That's a pretty little boy,” said I. And then I asked Billy one of those senseless routine questions which must make children look at us, regarding the scope of our intellects very much as we look at Bushmen.
”How would you like to play with him?”
”Him!” replied Billy scornfully, ”that's his first pair of boots; see him pull up his little breeches to show the red tops to 'em! But, crackey! isn't _she_ a smasher?”
After that we visited the wax figures and the sleepy snakes, the learned seal, and the gla.s.s-blowers. Whenever we pa.s.sed from one room into another Billy could be caught looking anxiously to see if the pretty girl and child were coming too.
Time fails me to describe how Billy was lost in astonishment at the Lightning Calculator--wanted me to beg the secret of that prodigy for him to do his sums by--finally thought he had discovered it, and resolved to keep his arm whirling all the time he studied his arithmetic lesson the next morning. Equally inadequate is it to relate in full how he became so confused among the wax-works that he pinched the solemnest showman's legs to see if he was real, and perplexed the beautiful Circa.s.sian to the verge of idiocy by telling her he had read in his geography all about the way they sold girls like her.
We had reached the stairs to that subterranean chamber in which the Behemoth of Holy Writ was wallowing about without a thought of the dignity which one expects from a canonical character. Billy had always languished upon his memories of this diverting beast, and I stood ready to see him plunge headlong the moment that he read the signboard at the head of the stairs. When he paused and hesitated there, not seeming at all anxious to go down till he saw the pretty girl and the child following after--a sudden intuition flashed across me. Could it be possible that Billy was caught in that vortex which whirled me down at ten years--a little boy's first love?
We were lingering about the elliptical basin, and catching occasional glimpses between bubbles of a vivified hair trunk of monstrous compa.s.s, whose k.n.o.bby lid opened at one end and showed a red morocco lining, when the pretty girl, in leaning over to point out the rising monster, dropped into the water one of her little gloves, and the swash made by the hippopotamus drifted it close under Billy's hand.
Either in play or as a mere coincidence the animal followed it. The other children about the tank screamed and started back as he b.u.mped his nose against the side; but Billy manfully bent down and grabbed the glove not an inch from one of his big tusks, then marched around the tank and presented it to the lady with a chivalry of manner in one of his years quite surprising.
”That's a real nice boy--you said so, didn't you, Lottie?--and I wish he'd come and play with me,” said the little fellow by the young lady's side, as Billy turned away, gracefully thanked, to come back to me with his cheeks roseate with blushes.
As he heard this Billy idled along the edge of the tank for a moment, then faced about and said:
”P'raps I will some day. Where do you live?”
”I live on East Seventeenth Street with papa--and Lottie stays there, too, now--she's my cousin. Where d'you live?”
”Oh! I live close by--right on that big green square, where I guess the nurse takes you once in awhile,” said Billy patronizingly. Then, looking up pluckily at the young lady, he added, ”I never saw you out there.”
”No; Jimmy's papa has only been in his new house a little while, and I've just come to visit him.”
”Say, will you come and play with me some time?” chimed in the inextinguishable Jimmy. ”I've got a cooking-stove--for real fire--and blocks, and a ball with a string.”
Billy, who belonged to a club for the practise of the great American game, and was what A. Ward would call the most superior battist among the I. G. B. B. 0., or ”Infant Giants,” smiled from an alt.i.tude upon Jimmy, but promised to go and play with him the next Sat.u.r.day afternoon.
Late that evening, after we had got home and dined, as I sat in my room over ”Pickwick” with a sedative cigar, a gentle knock at the door told of Daniel. I called ”Come in!” and, entering with a slow, dejected air, he sat down by my fire. For ten minutes he remained silent, though occasionally looking up as if about to speak, then dropping his head again, to ponder on the coals. Finally I laid down d.i.c.kens and spoke myself:
”You don't seem well to-night, Daniel?”
”I don't feel very well, uncle.”
”What's the matter, my boy?”
”Oh-ah, I don't know. That is, I wish I knew how to tell you.”
I studied him for a few minutes with kindly curiosity, then answered:
”Perhaps I can save you the trouble by cross-examining it out of you.
Let's try the method of elimination. I know that you're not hara.s.sed by any economical considerations, for you've all the money you want; and I know that ambition doesn't trouble you, for your tastes are scholarly. This narrows down the investigation of your symptoms-- listlessness, general dejection, and all--to three causes--dyspepsia, religious conflicts, love. Now, is your digestion awry?”
”No, sir; good as usual. I'm not melancholy on religion, and--”
”You don't tell me you're in love?”