The girl stopped and smiled. I loosed the kid, and he ran to her.
“Well, baby?” she said, bending down to him. “So father found you again, did he? Your little son and I made friends on the beach this morning,” she said to me.
This was the limit. Coming on top of that interview with the whiskered lunatic it so utterly unnerved me, don’t you know, that she had nodded good-bye and was half-way down the road before I caught up with my breath enough to deny the charge of being the infant’s father.
I hadn’t expected dear old Freddie to sing with joy when he found out what had happened, but I did think he might have shown a little more manly fortitude. He leaped up, glared at the kid, and clutched his head. He didn’t speak for a long time, but, on the other hand, when he began he did not leave off for a long time. He was quite emotional, dear old boy. It beat me where he could have picked up such expressions.
“Well,” he said, when he had finished, “say something! Heavens! man, why don’t you say something?”
“You don’t give me a chance, old top,” I said soothingly.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“What can we do about it?”
“We can’t spend our time acting as nurses to this—this exhibit.”
He got up.