“Well, look here, young one,” continued Geoffrey, after freeing his beard with a good deal of trouble, and leaving two or three curling hairs in the little fists. “You seem to have made up your mind to back up public opinion, you do, and evidently intend to adopt me as your father. Well, I don’t mind. I feel just in the humour to do mad things, so why not adopt you? I dare say I could manage to keep you as well as myself; but you won’t get fat. I don’t care. But look here, youngster, can you sit it out if I have a pipe, and not set to and sneeze off your miserable little head?
“Ah, you smile acquiescence, do you?” said Geoffrey. “Well, then, here goes.”
As he spoke, he began fumbling in his pocket for his pipe-case, tobacco-pouch, and match-box, all of which, in his laughing humour, he placed before the child, then stuck the match-box in one fist, the pipe in the other, and balanced the soft India-rubber pouch on the nodding head.
“Now then, stupid! Do you want to commit self-infanticide with phosphorus? Don’t suck those matches. It’s my belief, baby, that if you were thrown down in a provision warehouse you’d prolong your existence to an indefinite extent. Will you be quiet?” he exclaimed, laughing aloud. “Well, of all the funny little beggars that ever existed you are the most droll. There, now you’ve got your mouth all over the dye from that leather case. Wait a moment. There, if you must smoke you shall smoke, but don’t be so hungry after it that you must suck the case.”
He took the pipe-case from the little hand, opened and took out the pipe, wiped it, and then playfully closed the tiny fingers round the blackened stem of the old meerschaum, and guided the amber mouth-piece into the wet mouth.
The baby began to suck and rub the mouth-piece eagerly against its little gums, till it had a suspicion of the intense bitter of the pipe, when the look of content upon the soft, round little features gradually changed into such a droll grimace of disgust that Geoffrey lay back and laughed till the tears came into his eyes, and he wiped them away, and laughed heartily again and again.
“Oh, you rum little customer!” he exclaimed; “you’ve done me no end of good. I have not laughed like that since I came down to Carnac. Why, you’ve made my ribs ache, that you have—the devil!”
For at that moment, briskly walking along the cliff path, Rhoda turned the corner, and came right upon the pair.
Rhoda stopped as if petrified, and a fierce look of indignation flashed from her eyes.
Geoffrey was as much surprised, but he had more self-control, and, returning the indignant glance with one full of defiance, he kept his place in the sunny nook, lying right back, and went on tossing the baby to and fro, balancing it on his knees, and then pretending to make it walk up his broad chest, which, however, seemed to heave up into a mountain beneath the tiny feet.