"And you have married Madame Rous—or whatever her name is?"
"So quick as that!" cried Rouquin, snapping his fingers. "And now, M'sieur, when may I come to take little Napoleon home to his mother?"
Thus it came about that Napoleon was the first to go. Amid great pomp and ceremony, he departed from the home of the many Bingles on a bright, clear day in December, shortly after banking hours, attended by his own mother and father.
CHAPTER XVI — ANOTHER CHRISTMAS EVE
Christmas was drawing near. The Bingle children, accustomed to manifold and expensive presents, were in a state of doubt and hope combined. The older ones realised that while Santa would not pass them by without a sign, there was every reason to believe that he would not deliver the things for which they slyly petitioned, the things they most desired. They had been brought up to receive all that they expected and the prospect ahead for them was not reassuring from the viewpoint their intelligence forced them to take. There were secret lamentations and not a few surly discussions in the absence of Mr. Bingle.
Melissa took the older boys to task for some of the things they said about their foster father. Frederick was the chief offender. He knew that Mr. Bingle's pocket-book was the real Santa Claus, and he wanted a pair of skates and a hockey outfit. Something told him that he would be compelled to accept in lieu of these necessities a silly overcoat or a pair of shoes from the cheap department store up the street. He was too young and no doubt too selfish to admit that he was by way of outgrowing his clothes at least once if not twice a year, or that there is such a spectre as wear and tear. He became sullen, irritable and not infrequently rude to Mr. Bingle. Once when Melissa sharply rebuked him for his ingratitude, he came back at her with an argument that baffled her for the time being: he could not see why Mr. Bingle had been so good to Kathleen. Why had she been given a rich, happy home while he and all of the others were brought to a place like this? Melissa, finding no immediate response to this, boxed his ears.
The younger members of the brood were not involved in this graceless agitation. The complaints stopped with Guinivere. Harold, Rosemary and Rutherford were too young to realise the state of destitution into which the family had fallen. They were quite happy, contented and, so far, unaware of the gravity of a situation which was more or less apparent to their elders. Frederick, Marie Louise and Wilberforce formed the higher group of malcontents, and their mutterings reached the acute ears of a second and less formidable group composed of Reginald, Henrietta and Guinivere. The influence of the three older children, envied and imitated by the next three in order of age, was responsible for the inclusion of this second group in the general tendency toward unruliness and resentfulness.
Mr. Bingle sensed this unhappy condition of affairs. His soul was sorely tried. Was he doing the right thing by these children? He was doing his best, but was his best all that they were entitled to under the circumstances? Was he depriving them of a bigger chance in life? He had taken them out of the byways, but was he leading them to the highways? The whining, peevish submission on the part of the larger boys and girls; the unmistakable interrogation that always lurked in their eyes; the frequent outbursts of temper; the quarrels that came up every day among them—all of these went to prove they were sliding back into the byways. There was no gainsaying that, he would say to himself. Insolence, insubordination grew apace. Once Frederick, in the heat of passion over a well-deserved rebuke, called him a "damned old fool."