"For your sake and for theirs it may be necessary," said she, and then wearying of her philanthropic labours, abruptly dismissed him with a curt: "And now, good day, Mr. Bingle."
Agents from the Society began to visit the little flat; others made a practice of seeing that the older children went to school every day, and, if they were absent, to pester Mr. Bingle with inquiries. Once when Wilberforce had a sore throat, a strange and extremely business-like doctor called and took a culture, at the same time making a note of the congested condition of the sleeping quarters.
Then Mrs. Force took to bringing fashionably dressed ladies to the flat so that they might see for themselves; and docile looking gentlemen in dark clothes and galoshes came to mutter over the extraordinary impropriety of allowing boys and girls to live in the same home together.
Soon after Napoleon was taken away by the bride and bridegroom, Mrs. Force came with her secretary and interviewed the children. The secretary took down notes while Mrs. Force put the questions to the older boys and girls. Mr. Bingle had been virtually ordered out of the room. Afterwards he was called in to hear the report which showed that Frederick, Marie Louise, Wilberforce and Reginald seldom had enough to eat, were always cold and unhappy, and were really quite eager to go into other homes, if it would help "poor daddy." The smaller children whimpered, but it was because they were overawed and frightened by Mrs. Force, who in the Seawood days had always been looked upon by them as the "bad fairy." Melissa, good soul, openly professed that she and Mr. Bingle could manage to take care of the "kids" all right, but in secret she prayed that the Society would take away a half a dozen or so of the little ingrates.
At last Mr. Bingle agreed to let the children go, but stipulated that they should be sent direct to private homes, and not go, like a flock of sheep, into an asylum or Orphans' Home from which they might be parcelled out singly to any Tom, Dick or Harry who came to look them over. He also insisted on having the prospective "bidders" apply to him in person. He would be the judge. He would look them over, and if they suited him, all well and good; if not, he would keep the children until the right and proper persons came along.
His stand was a firm one. He refused to recede an inch from this final position. In vain they argued that it would be the part of wisdom, in fact that it would be absolutely imperative to take them to a comfortable, commodious dormitory where the business end of such undertakings was attended to in routine order and not in the helter-skelter fashion that he advocated.
"I have just begun to realise," he said, "what it is to try to bring other people's children up for them, so, if you please, I submit that I know more about the business than this society knows or ever can hope to know. I have given them everything. I have loved them and they have loved me. In adversity I still love them, but I fear that I cannot say as much for them. They are not my flesh and blood. They know it, my friends—they've never been led to believe that anything else is the case. Now, I am ready and willing to carry out my obligations to them. I am prepared to do all that is in my power to bring them up in the right way, to make good men and women of them. I am not willing, however, to palm them off on other people without first telling those people what they are to expect. I do not blame these boys and girls for resenting what fate has brought them to. It is quite natural that they should feel as they do. I do not call it ingratitude. It is human nature. Even a small boy may reveal symptoms of human nature, Mrs. Force, if you get him into a corner. Now, I want to say to you and your friends here that I will let them go on one condition, and that is that each goes into a home that I personally approve of and only after I have told the head of that home all that I know about the child he seeks to adopt. I appreciate your interest in my behalf and I thank you for your untiring efforts. I believe that you are sincerely in earnest. But I ask you to do me the honour of permitting me to get out of my bad bargain in my own way and in my own time. There is no especial need of haste."
It was pointed out to him that many of those desiring to adopt children lived in distant states and cities, principally in small towns or upon farms. It might be impossible for them to come to New York to see him or the children. He still refused to give an inch.
And so the Society, satisfied that it had achieved a victory, set about to find fathers and mothers for the nine Bingles, and Mr. Bingle sat down to wait for the final struggle that was to come, or, more properly speaking, for the nine separate struggles that lay ahead of him. The children were told what they might expect in the near future, and Mr. Bingle's heart was sorely hurt by the very evident enthusiasm with which they received the news. The younger ones, swept along by the current, and less subtle than their elders, plied Mr. Bingle with a hundred eager, innocent questions, and every one of them seemed to look upon the coming separation as a lark! It was not unusual to catch two or three of the older ones slyly, but excitedly discussing the prospective change, and always they averted their eyes and dropped their voices when Mr. Bingle drew near. Once he heard Marie Louise say in anger to Wilberforce that she'd bet daddy would keep her to the last because she was getting big enough to wash dishes and make beds!
The poor man was beginning to lose faith, not in human nature alone, but in himself. He grimly remarked to Melissa one day that "it isn't safe to count chickens even after they are hatched, especially when your eyes are smarting. I thought I knew more than God, Melissa, and if there was a bramble bush handy I'd jump into it in the hope that I might scratch my eyes back in again, as the saying goes."