"Oh—h—h—h—h!" If Tom could have but seen the expression upon his boy's face as he prolonged this exclamation, his loss of one of the grandest chances a cavalry officer ever had would not have seemed so great to him as it had done for years. He seemed to take in the story in all its bearings, and his great eyes grew in depth as they took on the far-away look which seemed too earnest for the strength of an earthly being to support.
But Toddie—he who a fond mamma thought endowed with art sense—Toddie had throughout my recital the air of a man who was musing on some affair of his own, and Budge's exclamation had hardly died away, when Toddie commenced to weave aloud an extravaganza wholly his own.
"When I was a soldier," he remarked, very gravely, "I had a coat an' a hat on, an' a muff, an' a little knake[5] wound my neck to keep me warm, an' it wained, an' hailed, an' 'tormed, an' I felt bad, so I whallowed a sword an' burned me all down dead."
[5] Snake: tippet.
"And how did you get here?" I asked, with interest proportioned to the importance of Toddie's last clause.
"Oh, I got up from the burn-down dead, an' comed right here. I want my dolly's k'adle."
O persistent little dragon! If you were of age, what a fortune you might make in business!
"WHEN I WAS A SOLDIER," REMARKED TODDIE