They took one silent turn backward and forward in the shade of the wall, getting, at the height on which the quarantine barracks are placed, what cool refreshment of sea breeze there was at seven in the morning. Mr Meagles’s companion resumed the conversation.
‘May I ask you,’ he said, ‘what is the name of—’
‘Tattycoram?’ Mr Meagles struck in. ‘I have not the least idea.’
‘I thought,’ said the other, ‘that—’
‘Tattycoram?’ suggested Mr Meagles again.
‘Thank you—that Tattycoram was a name; and I have several times wondered at the oddity of it.’
‘Why, the fact is,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘Mrs Meagles and myself are, you see, practical people.’
‘That you have frequently mentioned in the course of the agreeable and interesting conversations we have had together, walking up and down on these stones,’ said the other, with a half smile breaking through the gravity of his dark face.
‘Practical people. So one day, five or six years ago now, when we took Pet to church at the Foundling—you have heard of the Foundling Hospital in London? Similar to the Institution for the Found Children in Paris?’
‘I have seen it.’