"Yes, sir," I answered. "I can't imagine what more one could want."
"End of the chapter, eh, Ted?"
"With the addition of 'and they lived happily ever afterwards.'"
My father took a wire and ran it through the stem of his pipe.
"About the future which you have just mentioned. Your mother and sister will be on the Continent probably for several years. I shall be with them a good deal of the time. I am going to make you a director in the company to look after my interests and your own. That will not, however, take much of your time. You'll be free therefore, to do whatever you wish. I am definitely putting you and Helen on your own feet. If you need advice or help, you know where to turn—otherwise, go ahead and run your own show."
Any reply I might have made was cut short by Helen's entrance with my mother. My father joined us in a solemn visit to the whole house. The nursery received the closest inspection. Nurse was holding a very pink and well scrubbed baby, dressed in her Sunday best. The crib was ordered nearer the window; that was the only flaw discovered in what Helen and I felt to be the crucial room. We breathed easier, once by that. But a difficulty developed over the proposed laboratory. My mother said it was "criminal"—that was her very word—to have chemical fumes on the same floor with a baby's nursery. The rooms actually adjoined one another, making it much worse. The laboratory, if it was necessary at all to have such a nonsensical mess in a house, would have to be in the unoccupied room above. How Helen could in any event tolerate such a thing was beyond my mother's power to see. I was liable to burn the house down at any moment. If we were incapable of thinking for ourselves, we might at least occasionally think of the baby. The whole concluded with a peroration on my lack of any sense of responsibility. That had always been the curse of the Jevons side of the family. We humbly expressed our eagerness to put the laboratory upstairs.
"Why the devil did I tell her about that blasted laboratory?" I whispered to Helen as we went down into the garden. Outside we paused before the spacious kennel inhabited by the genial Sir Leonidas de la Patte Jaune. His welcome spread from ear to ear.
"This spot has been especially earmarked for Leonidas," I said to my mother, with a wink at Helen.
"Ted, what absurd words you use at times!" my mother said. "I can't see what attraction there is about that wretched animal. It's a loathsome yellow cur. If you are going to have a dog, for God's sake get a good one."
"He matches our family crest, mother. On a field vert, a hound souriant, or, enkennelé."