"He don't belong to them, you see," said John. "I must give him a hint to go."
"I beg your pardon, friend," said the old gentleman, advancing to him; "the more so as I fear your wife has not been well; but the Attendant whom my infirmity," he touched his ears, and shook his head, "renders almost indispensable, not having arrived, I fear there must be some mistake. The bad night which made the shelter of your comfortable cart (may I never have a worse!) so acceptable, is still as bad as ever. Would you, in your kindness, suffer me to rent a bed here?"
"Yes, yes," cried Dot. "Yes! Certainly!"
"Oh!" said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this consent. "Well! I don't object; but still I'm not quite sure that——"
"Hush!" she interrupted. "Dear John!"
"Why, he's stone deaf," urged John.
"I know he is, but——Yes, sir, certainly. Yes, certainly! I'll make him up a bed directly, John."
As she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and the agitation of her manner, were so strange, that the Carrier stood looking after her, quite confounded.
"Did its mothers make it up a Beds, then!" cried Miss Slowboy to the Baby; "and did its hair grow brown and curly when its caps was lifted off, and frighten it, a precious Pets, a sitting by the fires!"
With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, which is often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, the Carrier, as he walked slowly to and fro, found himself mentally repeating even these absurd words, many times. So many times, that he got them by heart, and was still conning them over and over, like a lesson, when Tilly, after administering as much friction to the little bald head with her hand as she thought wholesome (according to the practice of nurses), had once more tied the Baby's cap on.