“Bootles,” said Lacy, “look back over your past life—” Here he made a pause.
“Well?” said Bootles, expectantly.
“Twry to think if you can twrace any likeness to some early love, who may have marwried—or, for that matter, not have marwried—some one else, and—er—wremembering your kind heart—for you have a dashed kind heart, Bootles, there’s no denying it—may have found herself hard up or too much encumbered—for—er—you know, a babay is sometimes an awkward addition to a lady’s belongings—and may have twrusted to your—er—general—well, shall we say softness of chawracter to see it well pwrovided for—er—see?”
“No, I don’t. Of course I see what you mean, but I can’t—”
“Well—er—” Lacy broke in, “I—er—pewraps was not thinking so much of your case as of my own. You see,” appealing to the other three, “the advent of this—er—babay cwreates a precedent, and—er—if it should chance to occur to my first love—it would be awkward—for me, very awkward. Her name,” plunging headlong into a story they all knew, “was Naomi, and—er—she—er—in fact, jilted me for an elephantine parson, whose reverend name was—er—Fligg, Solomon Fligg. Now, if Mrs.—er—Solomon Fligg was to take it into her head to pack up the—er—eleven little Fliggs and send ’em to me—it would be what I should call awkward—devilish awkward.” Lacy’s four hearers positively roared, and the baby on Bootles’s knee chuckled and crowed with delight.
“I believe it understands,” Preston laughed.
“No. But it seems a jolly little chap,” answered Bootles. “Oh, I forgot, ’tis a girl. I say, I do wish you fellows would advise me what to do. How can I get any one to attend to it?”
“Oh, roll it up in the bedclothes and sleep on the sofa. It will go to sleep when it’s tired,” said one.
“With its clothes on?” said Bootles, doubtfully. “I rather fancy they undress babies when they put ’em to bed.”
“I don’t advise you to try. Oh, it won’t hurt for to-night.”