But I was not born an Irishman for nothing. Three minutes had not passed before I had won him to friendliness; five minutes had not gone by before the youngest child was sitting on my knee, listening, open-mouthed, to stories about a performing dog.
After a little time I said:
"Now I wonder if Timmy there—he's nine, you said, Mrs. Wright—I wonder whether he's a good hand at shopping, and if he'd come with me to get a few things at the butcher's, and the baker's, and the grocer's, and then help me to bring them back? Do you know, Timmy, I'm a very, very greedy man, and want a cup of tea badly; and somehow I've got an idea that your mother, here, is a good hand at making tea; and when you and I come back, I'm going to beg her to be so very kind as to make me a cup, and then, while all the rest of you have a cup too, and something to eat with it, I'll finish that story of mine about the dog."
But I had miscalculated Timmy's strength. He and I stopped at the first shop we came to—a grocer's—and borrowed a wicker basket. It had the word "Margarine" stencilled or painted in big black letters on one side; and by the same token, as, for weeks to come, I had occasion to borrow that same basket, and came to be a familiar figure in the streets, I was known and spoken of in the district as "Mr. Margarine." Into this basket Timmy and I stacked away tea, sugar, butter, and other groceries. Then we returned to my friend the woman in the baker's shop, and added to our store a loaf or two of bread.
"And now, Timmy," I said, "I daresay this kind lady could find you a piece of cake and a glass of milk. Meanwhile, I'll run across the road and interview the butcher."
I had hardly entered the butcher's shop before I heard the sudden pulling up of a horse and cart in the street, and saw the driver hastily dismounting.
Timmy, supposing I had meant him to follow at once with the basket, had taken it up, and must have passed out almost at my heels. Half-way across the street he had suddenly reeled and fallen, and now lay white and unconscious.
"What's the matter?" I asked the woman who was kneeling beside him with his head on her arm.
"Oh, nothing!" she answered, bitterly. "You've got eyes in your head, haven't you, and can see for yourself? He's fainted for want of food—that's what's the matter. He's only starving!"