"I thought that your idea, Tom, was to teach Horatio how to behave in public," I suggested, playfully, still calm in the belief that I had been deceived in the nursery by a dream.
"But as you said, Clare," argued Tom, "he's very young. It's really not bad form, you know, for a baby to pound a table with a spoon. Is it, nurse?"
"I think not, sir," answered the nurse, pushing the high chair back to its place. The baby had kicked it away from the table while Tom was speaking.
"Isn't he--isn't he rather--ah--nervous, my dear?" asked Tom, glancing at me with paternal solicitude. "It's quite normal, this--ah--tendency to bang things--and kick?"
"Perhaps he's hungry, Tom," I suggested, lightly. My spirits were rising. In the presence of the baby, whose appearance and manner were those of a healthy child something under a year in age, the absurdity of my recent incipient nightmare was so evident that I blushed at the recollection of my nonsensical panic. Reincarnation? Bah! what silly rubbish we do get from the far East!
"Of course he's hungry," assented Tom, glancing down at a bird the butler had put before him. "With your permission, nurse, I'll give the youngster a square meal. How would a bit of the breast from this partridge do? It's very tender and digestible--"
"How absurd, Tom!" I cried. "He'd choke!"
"He's choking as it is!" exclaimed Tom, half rising from his chair. "Pat him on the back, nurse!"
"He's all right, sir," said the nurse, calmly as Horatio's cheeks lost their sudden flush and he opened his pretty little eyes again. "You needn't worry, Mr. Minturn. He's in perfect health, sir."
"Aren't they queer?" exclaimed Tom, glancing at me, laughingly.