There is a small but snug apartment opening out of my library, through an arched and curtained doorway. The library is regarded as my workroom—impregnable, inviolable; not to be rudely attempted by devastating housemaids. There is a sort of tacit agreement between Kitty and myself as regards this apartment. Fatima-like, she may do what she pleases with the rest of the house. She may indulge her passion for drawing-room meetings to its fullest extent. She may intertain missionaries in the attics and hold meetings of the Dorcas Society in the basement. She may give reformed burglars the run of the silver-closet, and allow curates and chorus-girls to mingle in sweet companionship on the staircase. But she must leave the library alone, and neither she nor her following must overflow through its double doors during what I call business hours.
On this particular afternoon I had been engaged upon the draft of a small bill with which I had been entrusted—we will call it the "Importation of Mad Dogs Bill,"—and about four o'clock I handed it to Robin with instructions to write out a fair copy. Robin retired into his inner chamber, and I sat down in an arm-chair with Punch. (It was a Wednesday, the Parliamentary half-holiday of those days, and still, happily, the Punch-day of these.)
Kitty was holding a Drawing-room Meeting upstairs. I forget what description of body she was entertaining: it was either a Society for the Propagation of something which could never, in the nature of things, come to birth; or else an Association for the Prevention of something that was bound to go on so long as the world endured. I had been mercifully absolved from attending, and my tea had been sent in to me. I was enjoying an excellent caricature of my Chief in the minor cartoon of Punch, when I heard the door of the inner room open and the voice of my daughter inquire—
"Are you drefful busy, Uncle Robin?" (My secretary had been elevated to avuncular rank after a probation of just three hours.)
There was a sound as of a chair being pushed back, and a rustle which suggested the hasty laying aside of a manuscript, and Robin's voice said—
"Come away, Philly!" (This is a favourite Scoticism of Robin's, and appears to be a term denoting hearty welcome.)
There was a delighted squeal and the sound of pattering feet. Next ensued a period of rather audible osculation, and then there was silence. Presently Phillis said—
"What shall we do? Shall I sing you a hymn?"
Evidently the revels were about to commence.
"I have just learned a new one," she continued. "I heared it in Church yesterday afternoon, so I brought it home and changed it a bit. It's called 'Onward, Chwistian Sailors!'"