“If you’ve done making an old fool of yourself, sir,” said the major severely, “you’ll oblige me by handing over my niece.”
“Your niece!” was the indignant reply; “she’s nothing of the sort. Jane is my niece.”
“No more than mine,” insisted the major; “and you’re worrying her. Will you hand her over, you selfish man, or must I take her by force?”
Uncle John reluctantly submitted to the divorce and the major handled the baby as if she had been glass.
“Ye see,” he remarked, lapsing slightly into his Irish brogue, as he was apt to do when much interested, “I’ve raised a daughter meself, which John Merrick hasn’t, and I know the ways of the wee women. They know very well when a friend has ’em, and—Ouch! Leg-go, I say!”
Little Jane had his grizzly moustache fast in two chubby fists and the major’s howls aroused peals of laughter.
Uncle John nearly rolled from his chair in an ecstacy of delight and he could have shaken Mildred Travers for releasing the grip of the baby fingers and rescuing the major from torture.
“Laugh, ye satyr!” growled the major, wiping the tears from his own eyes. “It’s lucky you have no hair nor whiskers—any more than an egg—or you’d be writhing in agony before now.” He turned to look wonderingly at the crowing baby in Mildred’s arms. “It’s a female Sandow!” he averred. “The grip of her hands is something marvelous!”
[CHAPTER V—INEZ THREATENS]
“Yes,” said Louise, a week later, “we all make fools of ourselves over Toodlums, Really, girls, Jane is a very winning baby. I don’t say that because I’m her mother, understand. If she were anyone else’s baby, I’d say the same thing.”