Nurse, will you stop those children? Whatever are they making such a noise about? Master Harry and the baby fighting for the kitten! Then, take the kitten away from them! That poor kitten! I’m sure I expect to see it pulled in two sometimes. Can anybody tell me why cats and kittens and dogs let little babies pull them about and hardly ever scratch or bite? It is always a mystery to me.
CHAPTER XX.
MR. SAXON AGAIN.
If you look back at one of the chapters of these reminiscences of the ‘Stretford Arms,’ I forget which, you will find at the end that I was interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Saxon. He came without having sent a letter or a telegram to say that he was coming, and, of course, knowing what a dreadful fidget he was, that made me a little nervous, and I had to throw down my pen, and rush downstairs to see him myself, and make things as pleasant as possible.
I was very glad that he had come again, because that showed he was pleased with our place, and had appreciated the attention shown to him; and that is one thing I will say for him, with all his odd ways, and his violent tempers, and his rages and fads, he was always deeply sensible of any little kindness shown to him. Poor man, he suffered dreadfully from his infirmity of temper; but I quite believe what he always told me—that it was nervous irritability, and that it was caused by his constant ill-health, and that awful liver of his.
“Mary Jane,” he has said to me often, when we’ve been talking, “if I’d only had decent health and a pennyworth of digestion I should have been an angel upon earth. I should have been too good for this world, and died young.”
“Well, sir,” I said, “then, under these circumstances, your liver has been a blessing to you instead of a curse, because it has prolonged your life.”
“Good heavens! Mrs. Beckett,” he almost shrieked. “Is it possible that you, you who have witnessed my awful sufferings, you who have seen me tear my hair and bite the chair backs and kick the wall and hurl the coals out of the coal-scuttle at my own grinning demoniacal image in the looking-glass, can say such a thing as that? A blessing to prolong my life! Why, if the doctor had taken me away when I was born and drowned me in a pail of warm water, like they do the kittens, he would have been the best friend I ever had.”
“Oh, Mr. Saxon,” I said, “how can you say such dreadful things? I’m sure you have much to be thankful for. Many people envy you.”
“Do they?” he said. “Then more fools they. Look at me, Mrs. Beckett. Do you see how yellow I am? Do you know I go to bed at night half dead, and get up the next morning three-quarters dead, having spent the night in dreaming that I’m being hanged, or pursued by a mad bull, or having my chest jumped on by a demon? Do you know that I can’t open a letter without trembling, lest it should tell me of some awful disaster? That I’m so nervous, that if I see anybody coming that I know, I bolt round a corner to get away from them, and that I’m so restless that I can never stay in one place more than a week together, and that I’ve had the same headache for ten years straight off?”
“Yes, sir,” I said; “I know that you do get like that sometimes, and it must be very unpleasant; but if you’d take more care of yourself, and not work so hard, and take more exercise, perhaps you’d be better.”