"Bring the thing here and let me see what you are talking about."
The maid retired, returning presently carrying a small cake covered with an elaborate white icing, and further decorated, as has been said, with five pink candles. This she set upon the desk, and, a gleam of—was it malice or mischief? in her eyes, slipped away.
"Humph!" growled Giant Despair, peering at the strange object, even resorting to his big magnifying glass that he might see it the better.
An innocent, saucy little cake, it was a wonder it did not shrivel and disappear amid those strange surroundings, beneath that unfriendly gaze.
Could this be a joke some one was playing on him? Giant Despair wondered. But who thought enough about him even for that?
"Take it away," he commanded; but Annie had vanished, and so the cake had a chance to tell its story.
In this gloomy, tiresome world, somebody was five years old to-day. Not very much of a story, but somehow it impressed Giant Despair strangely. He leaned back in his chair, his frown relaxing a trifle.
He did not care for children; they were meddlesome and noisy. He waged continual warfare against certain naughty boys on Pleasant Street, who, divining his dislike, resorted to all sorts of teasing tricks. They carried off his door-mat, unhinged his gate, favored him with uncomplimentary valentines, and robbed his grape arbor,—each in its season.
So far as this went, however, he could not be called a favorite with older persons. In the large drug company where he was still senior partner he was held responsible for the policy of extorting just as much work as possible for just as little pay.
Persons of forbidding countenances are fated to be harshly judged; and the sins of others may have been laid at his door sometimes; but while his defective sight might be the cause of his frown, it remained that Giant Despair seldom spoke a kindly word.