"Sit in a wockin'-chair," sobbed Toddie.
I obeyed; and then my tormentor remarked:—
"You don't sing the wydes [words]—I wants the wydes."
I sang the words as softly as possible, with my lips close to his ear, but he roared:—
"Sing louder!"
"I don't know any more of it, Toddle," I exclaimed in desperation.
"Oh, I'll tell it all to you, Uncle Harry," said Budge. And there, before that audience, and her, I was obliged to sing that dreadful doggerel, line for line, as Budge repeated it. My teeth were set tight, my brow grew clammy, and I gazed upon Toddie with terrible thoughts in my mind. No one laughed—I grew so desperate that a titter would have given relief. At last I heard someone whisper:—
"See how he loves him! Poor man!—he's in perfect agony over the little fellow."
Had not the song reached its natural end just then, I believe I should have tossed my wounded nephew over the piazza rail. As it was, I set him upon his feet, announced the necessity of our departure, and began to take leave, when Miss Mayton's mother insisted that we should stay to dinner.
"For myself, I should be delighted, Mrs. Mayton," said I; "but my nephews have hardly learned company manners yet. I'm afraid my sister wouldn't forgive me if she heard I had taken them out to dinner."