Tom read:
“POLLY BREWSTER
Decorator
New York City
Representing Ashby Shops, New York and London.”
Tom’s shocked surprise at the unexpected announcement, so different from what he had expected, rendered him speechless for a full minute. During this pause, Polly patted his damp hair just as she might have patted her brother John’s head, or a faithful Newfoundland’s shaggy dome. This latter was Tom’s thought.
The gentle touch, combined with his resentful feelings about the business announcement, made him lose all self-control. He was so furious that he could not find his voice, and if he had, his words would have been unintelligible because of the head-cold. He sprang up from the chair, forgetful of his blanket swaddlings, and the large basin in which his feet were still immersed.
He lifted his hand above his head in a melodramatic way of denunciation, but the tragic effect was completely ruined when the porcelain basin began slipping across the hard-wood floor. He wildly threw out both hands to clutch at something for support, but the low chair he had occupied was not near the dressing table nor any other article of furniture in the room.
Polly tried to save him from a fall, but he threw off her rescuing hands; and thus he was falling to his ungraceful finish, when he managed to free one foot and planted it on the rug as a balance. But the basin with its wet porcelain bottom kept sliding ever farther away, and Tom still rolled in the swaddling robes suddenly sat down unceremoniously upon the floor.
Polly faintly screamed when the basin overturned and the mustard water ran in numerous streamlets across the waxed wood and center rug. Just at this critical moment, Mrs. Latimer came back to give her son the dose of quinine.