“That’s all you know about it,” retorted the nurse. “You must be a stranger in these parts; and, now I come to think on it, I don’t believe as I ever saw you here before.”
“No, miss, I was only shifted here last week from the Junction, and hardly knows nobody,” said Jupp apologetically. “For the rights o’ that, I ain’t been long in the railway line at all, having sarved ten years o’ my time aboard a man-o’-war, and left it thinking I’d like to see what a shore billet was like; and so I got made a porter, miss, my karacter being good on my discharge.”
“Dear me, what a pity!” cried the nurse. “I do so love sailors.”
“If you’ll only say the word, miss, I’ll go to sea again to-morrow then!” ejaculated Jupp eagerly.
“Oh no!” laughed the nurse; “why, then I shouldn’t see any more of you; but I was telling you about Master Teddy. Parson Vernon, as you call him, has four children in all—three of them girls, and Master Teddy is the only boy and the youngest of the lot.”
“And I s’pose he’s pretty well sp’ilt?” suggested Jupp.
“You may well say that,” replied the other. “He was his mother’s pet, and she, poor lady, died last year of consumption, so he’s been made all the more of since by his little sisters, and the grandmother when she comes down, as she did at Christmas. You’d hardly believe it, small as he looks he almost rules the house; for his father never interferes, save some terrible row is up and he hears him crying—and he can make a noise when he likes, can Master Teddy!”
“Ess,” said the mite at this, thinking his testimony was appealed to, and nodding his head affirmatively.
“And he comed all that way from t’other side o’ the village by hisself?” asked Jupp by way of putting a stop to sundry other endearments the fascinating young woman was recklessly lavishing on the little chap. “Why, it’s more nor a mile!”
“Aye, that he has. Just look at him,” said she, giving the mite another shake, although this time it was of a different description to the one she had first administered.