I watched Larry go bounding up the wide staircase with Neddo, and then I waited long enough for them to get well out of sight ahead; for Neddo to lead his uncle up the second flight, to show him baby in her bed asleep; and Larry—I could picture him—time to stoop over and kiss the dear, warm, plump little face.
"And now you must hide—I'll show you, Uncle Larry—till mummie comes," said Neddo, and led him back to the hall and onto the balcony, which looked down on the patio of the hotel. And there Neddo left him, after closing him in behind the lattice, as I had told him.
I then went to get Nan, who had been sentenced to read her mother to sleep with something out of Trollope. Nan's mother carried volumes of Trollope with her as other women carry hot-water bottles. Twenty minutes of dear old Trollope and she was good for her eight hours' sleep, she would say, as she did now; but this time without keeping Nan twenty minutes.
"Nettie, the way you go around commandeering people, you ought to be a general in the army," said auntie, but with perfect good nature. "Go along with her, Nan."
I led Nan to where Neddo was waiting in his crib. "Did you tell Cousin Nan yet, mummie?" asked Neddo in what he thought was a whisper.
"Tell me what, Neddo?" asked Nan.
"Neddo!" I said, and raised a finger. "Sh-h, Neddo!" and Neddo sh-h-d, and I led Nan into the hall. "I'm dying to have a talk with you," I whispered to Nan—"out here, where Neddo won't be kept awake and the maid won't hear us."
And so, just when Larry was, no doubt, thinking of breaking out of his hiding-place, he heard a door in the hall open, and through the slats of the lattice saw two women's shadowy forms tiptoeing down the hall toward his balcony.
Nan went straight to the lattice. "Let's let the air in, Nettie."
"No, no, Nan," I cried, "don't throw open the lattice!"