“My dear chap,” he said, coolly, “to charge you with being the father of that child,” pointing with his whip to the picture in Lacy’s arms, “would be a compliment on your personal appearance which I should never, under any circumstances, have dreamed of paying you.”
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Hartog afterwards to Lacy, “Bootles is a dashed good fellow—one of the best fellows in the world. I don’t know that there’s another I’d trust as far or as thoroughly; but all the same, Bootles is sometimes best left alone, and, for my part, I think Gilchrist and every one else had best leave him alone about this youngster.”
“Ya—as,” returned Lacy; then began to laugh. “Oh! but it was fine, though, about ‘personal appearance.’” And then he added, “Ugly little beast!”
CHAPTER IV.
It was not to be expected, and Bootles did not expect it, that the story of the mysterious little stranger could be confined to barracks. In fact, in the course of a few hours it had flown all over the town, gaining additions and alterations by the frequency of its repetition, until at last Bootles himself could hardly recognize it. A baby had been found in Captain Ferrers’s rooms; no one knew where it had come from nor to whom it belonged. Then—Captain Ferrers had rescued a young baby from a brutal father who was going to dash its brains out against the door-post. Then—Captain Ferrers had picked up a new-born infant while hunting with the duke’s hounds. Then—Captain Ferrers was suffering from mental aberration, or, to speak plainly, was getting a bit cracked, and had adopted a child a year old out of Idleminster workhouse. Then—It was really most romantic, but Captain Ferrers had been engaged to and jilted by a young lady long ago—which, of course, accounted for his being impervious to the fascinations of the Idleminster girls—who had married, been deserted by her husband, and now died—some versions of the story said “committed suicide”—leaving him the charge of a baby, etc.
Some people told one version of the story and some people told another, but nobody blamed Bootles very much. It might be because he was so rich and so handsome and pleasant; it might be because Idleminster society was free from that leaven of censoriousness which causes most people to look at most things from the worst possible view.
But Bootles went on his serene way, telling the true state of the case to every one who mentioned the affair to him, and always ending, “And hang it, you know, it’s a pretty little beggar, and I couldn’t send it to the workhouse.”
He made no secret about it at all, and on the Saturday following the advent of the child an advertisement appeared in the Idleminster Chronicle which made Idleminster tongues clack for a week:
“Wanted, immediately, a highly respectable and thoroughly experienced nurse of middle age, to take the entire charge of a child about a year old. Good wages to a suitable person. Apply to Captain Ferrers, Scarlet Lancers.”
In due time this advertisement produced the right sort of person, and a staid and respectable widow of about fifty was soon installed in a room next to Mr. Gray’s quarters, in charge of Miss Mignon, as the child had already come to be called by everybody.