“What else did he go to school for?” asked my father; and observing a certain dismay in the face of his female audience, and a certain surprise in that of his male, he rose and stood on the hearth, with one hand in his waistcoat, as was his wont when about to philosophise in more detail than was usual to him.
“Mr Squills,” said he, “you have had great experience in families.”
“As good a practice as any in the county,” said Mr Squills proudly: “more than I can manage. I shall advertise for a partner.”
“And,” resumed my father, “you must have observed almost invariably that, in every family, there is what father, mother, uncle and aunt, pronounce to be one wonderful child.”
“One at least,” said Mr Squills, smiling.
“It is easy,” continued my father, “to say this is parental partiality,—but it is not so. Examine that child as a stranger, and it will startle yourself. You stand amazed at its eager curiosity, its quick comprehension, its ready wit, its delicate perception. Often, too, you will find some faculty strikingly developed; the child will have a turn for mechanics, perhaps, and make you a model of a steamboat,—or it will have an ear tuned to verse, and will write you a poem like that it has got by heart from ‘The Speaker,’—or it will take to botany, (like Pisistratus) with the old maid its aunt,—or it will play a march on its sister’s pianoforte. In short, even you, Squills, will declare that it is really a wonderful child.”
“Upon my word,” said Mr Squills thoughtfully, “there’s a great deal of truth in what you say; little Tom Dobbs is a wonderful child—so is Frank Steppington—and as for Johnny Styles, I must bring him here for you to hear him prattle on Natural History, and see how well he handles his pretty little microscope.”
“Heaven forbid!” said my father. “And now let me proceed. These thaumata or wonders last till when, Mr Squills?—last till the boy goes to school, and then, somehow or other, the thaumata vanish into thin air, like ghosts at the cockcrow. A year after the prodigy has been at the academy, father and mother, uncle and aunt, plague you no more with his doings and sayings; the extraordinary infant has become a very ordinary little boy. Is it not so, Mr Squills?”
“Indeed you are right, sir. How did you come to be so observant; you never seem to—”
“Hush!” interrupted my father; and then, looking fondly at my mother’s anxious face, he said, soothingly—“be comforted: this is wisely ordained—and it is for the best.”