“Merrymusk, will you present me to your wife and children?”
“Yes. Wife, the gentleman wants to step in.”
“He is very welcome,” replied a weak voice.
Going behind the curtain, there lay a wasted, but strangely cheerful human face; and that was pretty much all; the body, hid by the counterpane and an old coat, seemed too shrunken to reveal itself through such impediments. At the bedside sat a pale girl, ministering. In another bed lay three children, side by side; three more pale faces.
“Oh, father, we don’t mislike the gentleman, but let us see Trumpet too.”
At a word, the cock strode behind the screen, and perched himself on the children’s bed. All their wasted eyes gazed at him with a wild and spiritual delight. They seemed to sun themselves in the radiant plumage of the cock.
“Better than a ’pothecary, eh,” said Merrymusk. “This is Dr. Cock himself.”
We retired from the sick ones, and I reseated myself again, lost in thought, over this strange household.
“You seem a glorious independent fellow,” said I.
“And I don’t think you a fool, and never did. Sir, you are a trump.”