Mr. Fox became thoughtful. "Mr. Brooks said that, did he?" he remarked.
I felt that I couldn't tell Vivian again to go in, because it would look as though I feared his frankness; which, to be candid, I did. All I could do was to hope for the best.
"She's quiet enough; used to traffic and all that?" Mr. Fox asked.
Then Vivian began to laugh. This trick of laughter over retrospection—chewing the cud of old jokes—we have always rather admired in him; his chuckles are very engaging; but now I trembled, and not without reason.
"Don't you remember, mother," he began, "that day when she was frightened by the traction engine and ran into the grocer's shop?"
Mr. Fox, in whose large hand my son's minute one was now reposing, looked grave.
"That's against her in my business," he said.
"Oh, but," I explained, "that was a very long time ago. She's quite steady now. Don't you remember, Vivian, it was on your fifth birthday?"
"No," said Vivian, "that was on my seventh birthday—something funny always happens on my birthdays," he explained to Mr. Fox—"it was on my fifth birthday that Polly fell down."
"She's been down, has she?" said Mr. Fox ominously.