"Never mind," she whispered back; "we needn't buy any if they're not good."
Timothy, who had by now been put straight by his attendant, was carefully placed on all-fours on a pile of cushions, which he promptly proceeded to chew. Mr. Klick, on attempting to correct the pose, was received with a hymn of hate that compelled him to bury his head hastily in the camera-cloth, and Suzanne arranged the subject so that some of his more recognisable features became visible.
"Now then," she said to me, "make him smile."
With a furtive glance at Mr. Klick, who fortunately was still playing the ostrich, I essayed a well-tried "face" that had almost invariably evoked a chuckle from Timothy, even when visitors were present. On this occasion, however, it failed to produce anything more than a woebegone pucker that foreshadowed something worse. Hastily I switched off into another expression, but with no better result.
"Go on, Father," encouraged Barbara, who had been taking a breathless interest in these proceedings; "try your funny voice."
Mr. Klick had emerged from cover and was standing expectantly with his hand on the cap.
Dear reader, have you ever been called upon to sing Pop Goes the Weasel in a falsetto voice before a fractious baby, a small but intensely critical child, a stolidly contemptuous nurse, an agitated mother and a gaping photographer, with the knowledge that success or failure hangs upon your lips, and that all the time a diabolical machine in the street below is scoring threepence against you every minute or so? Of course you haven't; but possibly you may be able to enter into my feelings in this hour of trial. With a prickly heat suffusing my whole body and a melting sensation at the collar I struggled through the wretched lyric once. Timothy regarded me first with scorn and then with positive distaste. In desperation I squeaked it out again and yet again, but each succeeding "pop" only registered another scowl on the face of my offspring and another threepence on that of the cabman's clock.
I was maddened now, and Suzanne sought to restrain me; but I shook her off violently and went on again da capo, and was just giving vent for about the seventeenth time to a particularly excruciating "pop" when the door of the studio opened and a benevolent-looking old gentleman entered. He gazed at us all in wonderment, and, overcome by mingled shame and exhaustion, I sank into a chair and popped no more.
"Ah, Mr. Snapper," said Mr. Klick, "we were just trying to get this young gentleman amused."
Mr. Snapper, who, I should imagine, was the adenoid victim, looked first at me and next at Timothy, and then blew his nose vigorously. It was not an ordinary blast, but had a peculiarly musical timbre, very much like the note of a mouth-organ. It certainly attracted Timothy's attention, for he at once looked round and the glimmer of a smile appeared upon his tear-stained face.