"You have been terribly wasted, my dear; I know how unpleasant that is. But never fear; a good sleep will quite restore you.—What have you to say, my son?" to the next child.
"Look at me," moaned the one questioned. "I am one mass of bruises from head to foot. I can hardly walk. I was never so treated in my life."
"What has happened to you?"
"I went into the house of a child who seemed very fond of study, and whom I thought would be very pleasant company. Stupid little thing!"—with a burst of rage—"she began to practice her music, and that moment I felt a sharp pain; she set to work beating me with all her might and main, great irregular thumps, now on my head, now on my shoulders, until I thought I must scream. I did groan and moan; it was all of no use, for she went on, as it seemed to me, forever. By-and-by her teacher came in, and that was better, for although he beat me, it was in an entirely different way, that did not hurt at all. It was as if he were caressing me. But the little vixen, belabored me again, and I am all black and blue."
"Never mind, poor boy," said Father Time. "You will be all right to-morrow; but I have had enough of such beatings to sympathize with you fully."
"They have neither of them suffered as much as I," remarked a third young Time, in a pathetic, subdued voice, "for they at least were abused in an open sort of way; but I have been mortified beyond conception. Shortly after my arrival in the world I entered the house of a respectable middle-aged woman: you know I have always been fond of associating with my elders, and I thought that I should be likely to learn something from her which might be of use to me."
"Quite right, my child," said Father Time, nodding his approval.
"But there never was a greater mistake," continued his son. "From morning until night that same respectable middle-aged lady has done nothing but attempt to hide me, as if I were something to be ashamed of; I, a scion of the oldest house in existence; I, a Time with a pedigree which goes farther back than Adam, though it consists of only one generation besides my own." (He said this with such pride that the trillions of dejected Times for one second really straightened themselves with family feeling.) "The first thing that she did was to cover my face with the most disgusting paint and powder that were ever invented, sighing all the time about wrinkles, crow's-feet, and the ravages of time. Then she put on some untidy mess of hair all over my forehead, and into my very eyes, after which she dressed me in a style which made me blush under the paint. Such furbelows! such gew-gaws! Then followed visits and conversations. She giggled; she simpered; she talked to me and of me as if I were a babe in arms; why, she talked like Mother Goose herself, and Father Gander, and the whole family of geese," indignantly. "I declare it made my blood boil."
Father Time looked grave. "I know thousands of such women," he said, "who are ashamed of their acquaintance with us. Very foolish of them, since they can not possibly cut us, and since, if they only knew it, there is no alliance in the world more highly respectable. Cheer up, my dear. You have nothing to be ashamed of.—And now tell me your experience," to a fourth young Time, who was holding his head with both hands, and groaning in agony.
"I am tired almost to death, if a Time could die," was the reply. "I have been with a poet."