“What was all right? Oh! Nonsense! It wasn’t possible. How could it have been possible? No, surely, the bed-room paper was to blame. It must contain arsenic. Let us send a piece to the chemist’s at once and have it tested.”
“Entirely free from arsenic,” reported the chemist.
“How strange! No arsenic in the wall papers?”
The young wife was still ill. He consulted a medical book and whispered a question in her ear. “There now! a hot bath!”
Four weeks later the midwife declared that everything was “as it should be.”
“As it should be? Well, of course! Only it was somewhat premature!”
But as it could not, be helped, they were delighted. Fancy, a baby! They would be papa and mama! What should they call him? For, of course, it would be a boy. No doubt, it would. But now she had a serious conversation with her husband! There had been no translating or proof-correcting since their marriage. And his salary alone was not sufficient.
“Yes, they had given no thought to the morrow. But, dear me, one was young only once! Now, however, there would be a change.”
On the following morning the assistant called on an old schoolfriend, a registrar, to ask him to stand security for a loan.
“You see, my dear fellow, when one is about to become a father, one has to consider how to meet increasing expenses.”