"'Christie's torso of a doll is such a jolly thing to chuck at a fellow, when you can't hit him!'
"Even little Harold, the two-year-old baby, who could not achieve such feats as these, could drag me about, as he did, by my poor stumps of legs, and cry, 'Who buy ducks? I dot ducks a sell!'
"The life I led in that riotous nursery was indeed an ordeal, and during its course not only my few remaining charms were obliterated, like my eyes, which were perseveringly rattled into the back of my head by Ethel, but my wardrobe also vanished piecemeal. First my shoes went one by one, and the socks followed, no one knew how or where, but they were most probably dropped out of doors somewhere, like my hat, which took flight in a rough wind at the seaside! For Christie's mode of carrying me when she took me out for a walk was original certainly, but not a model to be recommended to mothers of live dolls. She would tuck me roughly under one arm, without taking any trouble to see whether my head or my feet were uppermost, and would then set off at the round trot for which she was famous, and that had earned from her brothers her nickname, "the postman."
"The fictitious illnesses I have gone through would have furnished patients for the largest hospital in the world, but my last indisposition was of a character that made a more permanent alteration even in me. Now measles of a very malignant kind were at that time raging in the neighbourhood, and Christie's mother was very particular in keeping her children as much as possible out of the infection. Ethel, Christie's youngest sister, a child of about six years of age, had heard this talked over in parlour and nursery, and had imbibed a secret terror of this mysterious sickness which seemed so much dreaded by mother and nurse. And if mothers and nurses only suspected how very long the ears of little pitchers really are, and how much more they are inclined to take in all that should not concern them, I think they would be as careful as the House of Commons in sending out all intruders when serious questions were debated in committee. I am only a doll, and have therefore no vote in the matter, or else if I had a voice in the counsels of Home Government, I would suggest that the little ears which take in lessons and let them out again on the other side, and which have yet the power of catching and retaining all matters not necessary to their instruction, should be excluded from all graver deliberations.
"But this is a digression, and as it is one that belongs to a world beyond our little kingdom, it is perhaps not quite my business to enter on it at all. Where was I in my story? I am quite ashamed of trespassing so on your patience; but time and hard usage have so enfeebled my poor broken memory, that I almost forget all I am doing or saying!"
"You were mentioning a serious illness that occurred to you," suggested the Humming Top, very gravely; "pray relieve our minds as to its symptoms and duration!"
"Oh yes," resumed the Doll, languidly; "I was telling you how I really had the measles when they were so prevalent in our neighbourhood. Ethel, as I said before, was terribly alarmed at the vague disease; and not at all pleased with Baby Harold, who trotted soberly about the nursery, singing in his fashion,
"'I dowing a have a measoos a morrer!' till Ethel got hold of him, and drew such an awful picture of what she imagined they must be, including a plentiful allowance of powders, currant jam, and castor oil, that he roared in terror.
"'What's the row here?' asked Alan, lounging in at the time, and throwing himself full length on the hearth rug.
"'I dowing a have a measoos, and Efel says I sail be sick—so bad—and Smif dive me powders!' sobbed Harold, dolefully.