I saw the look in his face then as when a man is on the verge of being a traitor to himself. I had only to press the matter a little further and he would be abusing the wonderful functions of maternity in order to maintain his own pathetic sense of dignity. I pressed it further without any delay.
"You don't mean to say you'd like your wife to have babies?" I said, as I laid one of the little brown snowdrop bulbs under the mould and, after the manner of Cruikshank, tucked the clothes well over its head. "You wouldn't talk of it as a splendid event for her, would you?"
I could see him thinking how wonderful it would be if he had a wife; how still more wonderful it would be if she gave him a baby of his very own.
"I thought you knew I was not married, sir," he said, presently.
"I was speaking hypothetically," said I.
"Indeed, sir, I was not aware of that."
Hypothetically was undoubtedly beyond him. Therefore, "I was supposing that you were," I added for his benefit. "And if you were, you wouldn't care to have to wheel a baby out in a pram, would you?"
"God forbid," said he, most fervently.
I turned my face from him as I planted another bulb. It would not have done at all if he had seen my smile.
"Now you see," said I, "how odious your comparison was. You wouldn't be ashamed to be seen out with one of these snowdrops in your button-hole?"