"I should make a note of it," I suggested.
"Which is the very thing I'll do," she assented. "I'll write it down now on Master Chris's slate whilst it is in my mind. It's the only way to remember things, I do believe.
"Though it is my opinion, mum," she added, as she carried out her intention; "though it's my opinion a physician should not need reminding of such things. But there! he is always forgetting something. He has no head! I should like to know where it is sometimes, for it isn't always on his shoulders, I'll be bound!"
"How can the doctor's head not be on his shoulders?" asked a puzzled little voice. "'Cause he'd be quite dead if he had no head."
At this unexpected interruption Briggs and I looked in the direction whence the voice proceeded, and saw a little figure standing on the threshold of the door that led into the night-nursery. A little figure, in a long white nightgown, with tumbled, golden hair falling about the flushed little face, and two great violet eyes shining like stars, and dancing with mischief and glee.
I confess I felt a weak desire to take that naughty but bewitching little beggar in my arms, and kiss him in spite of all his sins. But Briggs experienced no such weakness.
"Master Chris!" she exclaimed in horrified amazement; "what next, I should like to know? This is past everything."
Then snatching him up in her arms, she carried him back to bed, struggling and vehemently protesting at being treated in so summary and undignified a fashion.
As for me, I presently went downstairs laughing, with the sound of Chris's voice still ringing in my ears:
"Put me down, Briggs. I will be a good boy. I don't want to be carried like a baby." Then with his usual persistency: "But I want to know—why do you say that the doctor sometimes has no head on his shoulders, 'cause how could he live without a head?" Then again, in the most insinuating of voices: "Shall I tell the doctor about the medicine he forgot, and shall I write down all the things you want to know, and all the things I want to know, and everything. Would I be a good boy if I did? I want some barley-sugar, 'cause my cough's drefful bad."