“Was it possible?” he mused. “Did his ears deceive him? Did he hear a laugh? A laugh! nay, even a sneer, a low snigger.”
He gazed steadily in the direction from which the noise seemed to proceed; and “dang his eyes” if it wasn’t repeated, wantonly repeated, daringly done again; and evidently the insult was aimed at him, for there, not many miles away, at most, were two great round goggle eyes a-glowering at him over a book, and a horrid great fleshy face all round them, with tufts of bristly hairs hanging from the cheeks, and a mouth with lips from which again came the sneer—the low insulting snigger.
Now Blinks, in the days of his darkness, had often heard the same despicable sound; and Blinks’s mamma called the voice Master.
“What!” thought he, “Blinks have a master! Blinks, the nine days’ wonder! Blinks, with two real eyes! But, dash those same two eyes! the thought was slavish. No, he wouldn’t give a suck for himself if he would bear it; and then that laugh, that snigger—come, he would at once go on the war-path, find out this ogre which his mamma,—the old idgit [idiot]—called master; and demolish for ever, and crush into the minutest smithereens, the mouth that dared to sneer, the lips that dared to snigger. Dash his eyes if he didn’t, that was all.”
“Walking was difficult, though,” so Blinks continued to muse and talk, “over a confounded rug too. Would his ma kindly take her stupid, awkward-looking stump of a tail out of his way? So-ho-oh! Gently! Hang it all!”
With this last exclamation Blinks tumbled off the rug, fell three long inches through the air, and screamed lustily for his ma.
“My ma! my ma!” roared Blinks.
“My chee-ild! my chee-ild!” cried his ma, “I am with thee, my chee-ild;” and he was forthwith carried by the nape of his warlike neck to his downy bed, and—happy thought—he would have a drink, and then ask his ma to get him a little golden carriage, with four white mice as horses, and a boy-mouse in buttons behind. For why? He, Blinks, was never made to walk, nor meant to walk, nor did he mean to walk; for it was mean to walk, and he couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t. So from thinking Blinks came to dreaming; then he once more slumbered and slept, while his mother, sitting over him, nodded and sang.