For the next three days we refrained from argument accordingly, sometimes calling him one name, sometimes another. The thing ended, perhaps inevitably, in a compromise. He became "Archibill."
It was curious how the charms of Archibill grew upon us—how his personality developed under Delia's care. She insisted that he recognized her step, and that the piercingly shrill cry he gave was for her ear alone. Perhaps it was so—women have more subtle powers of perception than men. There was real pathos in their first parting, which came when an inconsiderate grand-aunt in Scotland, knowing nothing of Archibill's claims, made Delia promise to pay her a ten-days' visit.
"You mustn't mind Missis being away, old boy," Delia told him, "because she'll be coming back soon. And, although Master's going to stay with his sister, you won't be lonely. There's a nice kind charlady who'll look in every day to make sure that you haven't been stolen by horrid tramps, and that the silver spoons are safe." Yet, from what she has told me since, I know that her spirits were heavy with foreboding when she left by the 11.23 from Euston.
We returned, later than we expected, together. The nice kind charlady had done her work for the day, and left, but a fire burned cheerfully in the dining-room and the table was laid for tea.
"And where," demanded Delia, "is Archibill?"
Even as she spoke she sped into the kitchen. A moment later I heard a cry, and followed.
"Look!" said Delia.
He lay near the range, a wrecked and worn-out shadow of his former self, incapable of even a sigh. Tenderly she lifted him.
"It's just neglect," she said. "Why did I leave him! Something always happens when one leaves such treasures as Archibill."
"It mayn't be too late to do something," I said; "I'll run down with him to Gramshaw's after tea."