When he talks to himself he mutters, so I could only just hear what he was saying, and he said it over and over again:
"Dos first and feels afterwards."
"What are you doing, Chris?" I asked.
"I'm getting ready my new top to give to Harry. Dos first and feels afterwards."
"Well," I said, "Christopher, you are a good boy."
"I should like to punch his head," said Chris—and he said it in just the same sing-song tone—"but I'm getting the top ready. Dos first and feels afterwards."
And he went on winding and muttering.
Afterwards he told me that the "feels" came sooner than he expected. Harry wouldn't take his top, and they made up their quarrel.
Christopher is very simple, but sometimes we think he is also a little sly. He can make very wily excuses about things he does not like.
He does not like Nurse to hold back his head and wash his face; and at last one day she let him go down-stairs with a dirty face, and then complained to Mother. So Mother asked Chris why he was so naughty about having his face washed, and he said, quite gravely, "I do think it would be such pity if the water got into my head again by accident." Mother did not know he had ever heard about it, but she said, "Oh, Chris! Chris! that's one of your excuses." And he said, "It's not my 'scusis. She lets a good deal get in—at my ears—and lather too."