“Weve had grate times ear uncle Jo—”
“Must go on milking that ould cow,” he thought
“tuk me to sea the prins of Wales yesterda”
He could not help it—he began to take a wild joy in his own inventions.
“flags and banns of musick all day and luminerashuns all
night it was grand we were top of an umnibuss goin down lord
strete and saw him as plane as plane”
“Bless me,” said Pete, dropping his pen, and rubbing his hands in ravishing contemplation of his own fiction; “the next thing we hear she'll be riding in her carriage and' pair.”
He was sobbing a little, for all that, in a low, smothered way, but he could not deny himself one word more—
“luv to all enquirin frens and bess respecs to the Dempster
if im not forgot at him.”
This second forgery of love being finished, he went about the house on tiptoe, found brown paper and twine, put the hood back into the box with his half-sheet peeping from between the frills where the little face would go, and made it up, with his undeft fingers, into an ungainly parcel, which he addressed to himself as before. After that he did his accustomed duty with the lamp and the door, and lay down in the parlour to sleep.
On Monday, at dinner, he broke out peevishly with “Ter'ble botheration, Nancy—I must be going to Port St. Mary about that thundering demonstration.”