This time it was an absurd Dutch cow, spindle-legged and huge of body and head, a cream-jug cow, into which the cream was put via an aperture in the back, on which sat a gigantic fly, and from which, via the mouth, it was conveyed to tart. This was puzzling, and he thought aloud over it.
“Four legs,” he said, “as thin as a stag’s. So where’s the head? That won’t do; horn each side, and—good Lord! what’s this on the middle of the back? It’s movable, too. Shall I break anything?”
“Not if you are not violent.”
“Well, a big head with a switch-horn, and a mouth, why it’s from ear to ear. And a lid on the abortion’s back. Tail—is it a tail; oh, yes, it must be, it comes from there—curled up till it nearly reaches the hole in the back.”
He paused a moment, feeling it with nimble fingers, and though Madge could not see his forehead, she knew from his mouth that he was frowning. Then it came to him.
“Dutch cow,” he cried. “There’s an insect, a fly, I should think, sitting on the hole at its back, where you put the cream in. And it comes out of its mouth, you know. Looks rather as if it was being sick.”
Madge’s letter slipped to the ground as she applauded this.
“Give me that letter,” he said. “I’ll tell you whom it is from. Oh, there’s nurse; is it breakfast? I am so hungry. I’ll tell you about the letter afterwards.”
Then for a moment he was silent, and his mouth grew grave. He had insisted late the evening before on being shaved, and the smooth chin, the smooth upper lip, were clean below the white bandages. The nurse had been confederate to this.
“You see, the bandages are coming off to-morrow,” he had said, “and Madge would hate to see me with this awful stubble. Sometimes, nurse, I usen’t to shave before breakfast, and she always cut me—figuratively, you know—till I did. You’ll find a razor about somewhere. Clip it first, please.”