“It’s not very intelligent,” said Southerley, becoming suddenly haughty when he perceived that his antics were creating more amusement among the grown-up persons on board than they did in the object of his playfulness.
“Come, give it a chance,” said Repton, whose first burst of indignation had already given place to something like active interest in the live animal which it seemed so impossible to get rid of. “Were you intelligent at eighteen months old?”
And recalling some of the ways by which comparative peace had been secured among the juvenile inhabitants of the nursery in which he had been one of a body of brothers and sisters, Repton began to show off his accomplishments in that direction by the production of his watch, with which he kept the enemy at bay for some minutes.
“He’s not a bad sort of youngster, as youngsters go,” he remarked apologetically, when both Bayre and Southerley began to smile at him in their turn. “But it’s jolly cold for him up here. I vote we take him down below and lend him to the stewardess while we decide what’s to be done with him.”
But when they had carried him downstairs, an operation during which they were objects of general interest, they found it such a fascinating occupation to chat with the stewardess and to play with the child at the same time, that the minutes flew quickly by, and they were half-way across to the mainland before they woke to the fact that they were as far as ever from a conclusion as to what was to be done with their new and unwelcome possession.
By this time they had grown less barbarous in their intentions, so that Bayre’s quiet announcement that he meant to take the child on to London, and to make inquiries from there as to its identity, met with but faint remonstrances.
“It’s rum sort of luggage to bring back with one from abroad,” protested Repton, with comparative meekness.
“An equivocal sort of possession, a baby!” suggested Southerley.
“It’s all right among three of us,” said Bayre, stoutly. “In numbers there is safety. Let us all show an equal amount of interest in him and we are safe from the breath of calumny. Nobody ever heard of a child with three fathers!”
“I don’t know how to show interest in a child of such tender years,” objected Southerley. “I’m ready to teach him Greek, but the question is whether he would be equally ready to learn.”