She turned a supplicating eye on me. It runs in the family.
“Naturally,” I replied. “It would be a big burden, in these days of small families, for any one person. But no, Mrs. Vicars. Perhaps on a future occasion——I have it!” I added.
“You have what?”
“Coke’s your man, Mrs. Vicars. Come.”
I rose, and assisted her to rise also. She hung back, but I brought her along. It was the very thing! We approached the couple. The Colonel was holding forth on the dialects of the North-Western Provinces.
“Coke!” I said. He looked up.
“Accept my felicitations. You are to stand godfather to Mrs. Vicars’s little boy next week.”
Coke blushed a vivid gamboge, and stopped dead.
“Gad!” he stammered. “Wha—what’s that, Butterfield?”
“Sponsor, my dear Coke,” I returned, “at the investiture of a fellow-man with a name. You’re just the man.”