"I think you are really marvellous, Bones," said the girl, and meant it.
Henry Hamilton Bones sat upright in a wooden cot. A fat-faced atom of brown humanity, bald-headed and big-eyed, he sucked his thumb and stared at the visitor, and from the visitor to Bones.
Bones he regarded with an intelligent interest which dissolved into a fat chuckle of sheer delight.
"Isn't it—isn't it simply extraordinary?" demanded Bones ecstatically. "In all your long an' painful experience, dear old friend an' co-worker, have you ever seen anything like it? When you remember that babies don't open their eyes until three weeks after they're born——"
"Da!" said Henry Hamilton Bones.
"Da yourself, Henry!" squawked his foster-father.
"Do da!" said Henry.
The smile vanished from Bones's face, and he bit his lip thoughtfully.
"Do da!" he repeated. "Let me see, what is 'do da'?"
"Do da!" roared Henry.