Bindle ignored her remark. He was engaged in taking from its wrappings a peculiarly hideous rag-doll.
Mrs. Bindle paused in her preparations to watch the operation.
"What's that for?" she demanded aggressively.
"Millie's kid," he replied, devoting himself to the opening of other packages, and producing a monkey-on-a-stick, an inexpensive teddy-bear, a jack-in-the-box and several metal animals, which on being blown through emitted strident noises.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, wasting money on hideous things like that. They'd frighten the poor child to death."
"Frighten 'im!" he cried. "These ain't goin' to frighten 'im. You wait an' 'ear wot 'e's got to say about 'em."
"You just clear those things out of my kitchen," was the uncompromising rejoinder. "I won't have the poor child sent into convulsions because you're a fool."
There was something in her voice which caused Bindle meekly to gather together the toys and carry them out of the kitchen and upstairs, where he placed them in a drawer devoted entirely to his own possessions.
"Well, I'm blowed," he murmured, as he laid them one beside another. "And me a-thinkin' they'd make 'im laugh;" with that he closed the drawer, determined that, at least, Millie should see the toys that were as much a tribute to her as to her offspring.
"Fancy little Millikins 'avin' a kid all of 'er own," he muttered, as he descended the stairs, "'er wot I used to dangle on my knee till she crowed again. Well, well," he added as he opened the kitchen door, "we ain't none of us gettin' younger."