If I had been a man of a tragic turn of mind, and fond of giving vent to the passion of a scene, I would have walked up and down the room, striking myself on the brow or breast, and shouting, "Confusion! distraction!" and other powerful words which Mr Kean used to deliver with astonishing emphasis; but I had no talent for the intense, and threw myself on the sofa, exclaiming, "Here's a pretty go!"
And a pretty go it undoubtedly was—two black women and a saffron-coloured baby established with me, as if I had been married to a Hottentot; and my sister-in-law, as is very often the case, had come to attend to her nieces' morals and education.
"So! Mr Morgan, what is the meaning of all this?"
But before I had time for further exclamations, my friend Mr Morgan, who had come quietly into the room, interrupted me——
"Hush, my dear Sneezum—you are delighted, I'm sure. A most interesting incident—eh, Sneezum?"
"Oh! these things do all very well in a book," I began; "but, by jingo, sir, it's a very different thing in real life; and I tell you very fairly, I'd sooner be married at once than have all the troubles of bringing up a set of children that I have nothing to do with."
"Children! my dear Sneezum?"
"To be sure; how do I know that some more black women mayn't come—with some more children—till my house grows like a gallery of bronzed figures; but I'll sell them—see if I don't; I'll pack them all on an Italian boy's head-board, and sell them to the doctors—every one."
"You labour under a mistake, my dear Sneezum. You've got my letter?"
"Yes—I got it—but"——