Sir Christopher attempted a pleasant smile, and followed Dr. Wagtail to the chamber of the indisposed lady.
The moment the door was opened, the shrill but nevertheless apparently half-stifled cry of a newborn child saluted the knight's ears; and, hastening up to the bed, he bent over and kissed his wife.
"See what heaven has sent us, Sir Christopher!" said the lady, in a low and weak voice, well suited to the solemnity of her observation; and, slightly uncovering the bed-clothes, she exhibited a tiny object, looking amazingly red, but which she assured him was "the sweetest little face in the world."
"That it is—the pretty creatur!" observed a hoarse voice, which appeared to emanate from the chimney, but which in reality came from no further off than the fire-place, and belonged to an elderly woman of tremendous corpulency, who was arranging some baby-linen on a clothes-horse. "I've nussed a many ladies," continued the stout proprietress of the hoarse voice, "but never such a patient dear as your'n, Sir Christopher: and I never see such a angel at its birth as that babby. Why," continued the woman, advancing towards the knight and giving him a good long stare, while, potent odours of gin assailed his nostrils all the while, "I do declare that the babby is as like his father as he can be."
Sir Christopher "grinned horribly a ghastly smile," and slipped half-a-guinea into the nurse's hand, at which proof of his generosity she dropped him a curtsey that shook the house so profoundly as nearly to drop her through the floor.
"Yes—the babby's as like you, Sir, as two peas is like each other," continued the nurse, while Dr. Wagtail and the accoucheur exchanged rapid but intelligent glances at the excellence of the idea, and Sir Christopher grunted like a learned pig which has just put its snout upon the right card in a show. "I'm sure, Sir, you ought to be wery much obleeged to missus for presenting you with such a cherub. Poor dear! she had a sad time of it—but she bore it like a saint, as she is. Won't you let master have just one kiss at the little dear, my lady?"
The saint was just at that moment wondering whether the child, as it grew up, would bear any resemblance to a certain tall footman in a certain family at the West End: but why such an idea should enter her head, we must leave to the readers to divine.
The nurse repeated her question, adding, "Do let the little dear's pa just kiss it once; and then we must turn him out, you know, ma'am, for the present."
"Yes, Sir Christopher—you may kiss the little cherub, if you like," said Lady Blunt, in a tone which was meant to impress on her husband's mind a full sense of the favour conferred upon him: "but pray don't make the sweet child squeal out—for you're so rough."
The knight accordingly touched the babe with his lips, which he smacked to make believe that the kiss was a hearty one in spite of his wife's injunction; and, this ceremony being completed, he was turned out of the room by the nurse, whose power on such occasions amounts, as all fathers know, to an absolute despotism.