XIV
THREE BABIES
One of the disadvantages attaching to Dr. Brink's profession is its stay-at-home character. A doctor has not time to travel. And it is a well-known fact that travelling improves the mind.
Think, for instance, how my doctor's mind would relish the improvement associated with a short spell of travel on the London, Tilbury, and Something Railroad! I travelled on this system only yesterday—it is the direct route to Dr. Brink's—and I protest that one of my fellow-travellers—a baby—was really most improving.
This baby came into our compartment head downwards, and advertised his displeasure with this state of things by means at his command.
A little pale-faced girl who followed Baby uttered remonstrances, which were answered by the little rickety boy who carried him. I saw and heard these things but vaguely, because our carriage was filled with noise and smell, and its lights were dim. And many people had breathed within it, and the gentlemen about me were smoking shag tobacco.
The little pale-faced girl expressed herself with emphasis, coughing and gasping between each adjective. There was a great deal of fringe upon her forehead and a great deal of feather on her head, and some broken teeth within her mouth. She dug at her companion with a bony elbow, as they stood there, being supported in an upright attitude by means of other people's knees and also by means of a rack provided for light articles only. "You clumsy tyke, you!" shrilled the girl, by way of concluding her address.
"Hee-haw!" responded the youth, with satire. It was made evident by certain signs, such as the cheerfulness of his conversation and a sort of négligé as to his fringe, that he had spent his evening amid congenial surroundings. '"Old the kid yeself, then," he added. And his companion took the child.
"What you done with them suckers?" she then demanded; upon which the young man brought forth bull's-eyes from his trouser pocket. With one of these the little girl essayed to comfort Baby, holding the evil thing between his toothless gums. But Baby continued, as before, to moan and writhe.... "I fink that beetroot ain't agreein' wiv 'im," said the girl.
The little rickety boy made no reply. He was busy, having a handful of cigarette-ends to strip and bind anew with paper. "Why don't you stop 'is noise?" he at length demanded, applying his tongue to the completed "fag." "Call yeself a mother?"