“So then the wise men came. They were shepherds. They came with their flocks-by-night——”
“Huh?”
“Flocks-by-night, I say. It was something they had. They brought me some Frank’s incense——”
“Unka F’ank! Goo-ood Unka F’ank!”
“Will you keep still? It wasn’t that Frank.”
“Warum nicht?” inquired the baby, with a startling intelligibility. Her German, for some reason best known to herself, was as distinct as her English was garbled.
“Because it isn’t, silly. Uncle Frank isn’t a wise man—he’s a p’fessor in college. And they brought me——”
“Look here, Bobbert, what on earth are you talking about?”
“I’m telling her all about Christmas, Uncle Frank.” Bobbert removed the corner of the rug from the baby’s mouth and handed her her silk rag doll. “Minna said to amuse her, and I was. About the manger I was telling——”
“So I heard. But why do you cast it in that form precisely? You see, you weren’t born in one, and—and—er—you really oughtn’t to talk that way, don’t you know.”