"I want to ask you a lot," I heard Chris say importantly.
"Very well," replied the doctor good-naturedly, "let us hear it;" at which point curiosity prompted me to go to the door of the night-nursery and look in.
Chris was in the act of drawing, with no little pomp, the large sheet of foolscap from beneath his pillow.
"Read it," he said, handing it to the doctor with pride. "I've printed it all myself."
The doctor laughed as he glanced at it.
"I think," he said, "you had better read it to me yourself, my little man."
"All right!" answered Chris. "It's all questions I want to ask you. I've written them down in case I forget them."
I here saw Briggs glance up uneasily, and was myself conscious of some feeling of disquietude. Could Chris's questions have anything to do with Briggs' remarks of the previous evening? A recollection came back to me which, till that moment, had slipped from my mind. Had not I heard a suggestion made by a naughty, struggling little mortal being carried back to bed against his will? "Shall I write down all the things you want to know, and all the things I want to know, and everything?"
A presentiment of coming confusion came upon me, and I half stepped forward to try and stop Chris going further in his proposed catechism. But I was too late; he started without delay.
"May I have sugar-candy for my cough instead of barley-sugar, 'cause I've eaten so much barley-sugar?" he began pompously.