"I have not the least objection to making your acquaintance," said he, unreluctantly, it must be confessed.
"Oh, thank you," said the little fellow, drawing nearer, and putting his hand confidingly in John's, and looking up at him with bright, happy eyes. "Then perhaps I may—may I?"
What "may I" meant was a gentle pressure of the lips upon the smoky cheek of John. If John had been astonished before he was still more astonished now—so much so that the pipe he was smoking fell from his fingers, and was broken into fragments on the floor. What had he, a grumpy bachelor, to do with kissing? Twenty years had passed since his cheek had felt the pressure of lips, and then they were the death-cold lips of a younger brother—surely about the size of this strange imp—who had left him with that dumb farewell for ever.
"What is your name, my lad?" said he, softly.
"Willie Maxwell. Mother calls me 'her Willie.' Dodo—that is my sister, you know—when she is well" (here the little fellow sighed) "says that I'm her pet. But at the theatre I'm only known as 'Fourth Imp.' Mr. Billings"—Mr. Billings was the stage-manager of the Comedy—"has promised that, if I'm a good boy, I shall some day be First Imp!"
"That will be a rise in the world, and no mistake," remarked John.
"Well, Mr. Daubs, it will be a little more money for mother—threepence extra a night—but I shouldn't like to push out Teddy Morris. You know Teddy?"
John was obliged to confess that he had not the honour of that young gentleman's acquaintance. He never troubled himself with anything or anybody outside his own department.
"Teddy Morris is First Imp. He doesn't like me, you know, because he thinks I'm—what do you call it, Mr. Daubs?"
"Ambitious?"