Fred was a listless youth, kin to the stevedore. And he came in tired and pale, having "done a whack o' overtime at the pickle works." And he said no word to anybody, but set a saucepan on the sullen fire and sat beside it, stupidly, waiting for an egg to boil. "She don't 'arf sing about it." "What?" demanded the husband, almost savagely. "Ah!" responded Fred.
Then there rang out another sound—the voice of auntie, raised in raucous laughter. "My Gawd!" she cried, "'ow's that for a beauty?"
Mr. Potter shook the drowsy, silent child upon his knee. "Cheer up, Joe," he cried; "you're cut out now, me lad. You ain't the baby any more. D'jeer? Then gimme a bleedin' kiss."
Auntie appeared for a moment in the doorway. "Boy," said she.
Mr. Potter's joy was, for a moment, modified by this announcement. "It was a gel I wished for," he said. "It was a gel we wanted." He rubbed his chin upon young Joseph's yellow head.
"But," he continued, beholding suddenly a pleasant truth, "we shall get some blessed sleep at ennyrate.... Ain't it time that little beggar started in to cry?"
But the boy Fred, to whom Mr. Potter presumably addressed himself, offered no reply. He was engaged in boiling his egg.
"I should like to 'ear the beggar cry, though," said Mr. Potter wistfully, after a pause. He rubbed his chin on Joseph's head again. The boy Fred stirred his saucepan. "Funny, ain't it," mused the stevedore, "that the little chap don't 'oller?" But as he spoke, the little chap responded. "That's done it," cried the stevedore, and rubbed his chin on Joseph's head.
And then I clearly heard the voice of auntie. "That young man what's with you, Doctor, is 'e a doctor, too?"
"Not exactly a doctor," responded Brink; "but he knows quite as much about medicine as any doctor."