“I believe you’re right,” he says.
“Now we’re getting warm,” I says. “By a coincidence this dog was being taken to Birmingham, packed in a hamper exactly similar to the one you put your baby in. You’ve got this man’s bull-pup, he’s got your baby; and I wouldn’t like to say off-hand at this moment which of you’s feeling the madder. As likely as not, he thinks you’ve done it on purpose.”
He leant his head against the bed-post and groaned. “Milly may be here at any
moment,” says he, “and I’ll have to tell her the baby’s been sent by mistake to a Dog Show! I daresn’t do it,” he says, “I daresn’t do it.”
“Go on to Birmingham,” I says, “and try and find it. You can catch the quarter to six and be back here before eight.”
“Come with me,” he says; “you’re a good man, come with me. I ain’t fit to go by myself.”
He was right; he’d have got run over outside the door, the state he was in then.
“Well,” I says, “if the guv’nor don’t object—”
“Oh! he won’t, he can’t,” cries the young fellow, wringing his hands. “Tell him it’s a matter of a life’s happiness. Tell him—”
“I’ll tell him it’s a matter of half