"You young murdering villain!" shouted the flyman, clapping his hand to his injured shoulder. "I've half a mind to break every bone in your body."
"I would if I were you," retorted the lad "Try it on. You've been saucing me all the way. I may only have one leg, but yours wouldn't be the first head which I've splintered with a wooden one. Then you'd be a living curiosity, I guess."
This young gentleman entered Mulberry House hopping upon one leg. The wooden limb he carried in his hands. After him followed a second young gentleman, who, since one of his sleeves was pinned up to his coat, was apparently possessed of but a single arm.
"There's a armless young gentleman in the drawing-room," announced Sarah to her master, "and another what's got his leg tucked under his arm."
The announcement did not appear to take the principal of Mulberry House by surprise.
"Further samples of the assorted lot," he murmured.
He was right. The strangers were two more examples of the fecundity and the versatility of Mr. Bindon. The young gentleman with "his leg tucked under his arm" declared his name to be Oscar J. Oswald Bindon. The young gentleman with only one arm under which a leg could possibly be "tucked" was another John T. Jasper Bindon.
"I understood from your father," said Mr. Harland, "that this lot would consist of five, or possibly seven. May I ask if there are any more of you to follow? This dropping in unexpectedly, by ones and twos, Mrs. Harland and I find a little inconvenient."
"There's two more coming. But we wouldn't have anything to do with them because they stutter."
This repudiation comes from Oscar J. Oswald. As he spoke he was fastening on his wooden leg.