'Nine lives, Mary. Here, come along in and get me the whisky and a spoon!'
She sat by the fire with mother spread out on her knee, and petted her and stroked her, and poured a tiny drop of whisky and water down her throat. She sat nursing her like that for two hours, mother told me afterwards, for long before that Mary had marched Freddy and me upstairs, holding us like a string of onions.
Later in the day mother was brought up and put to bed, very weak and disinclined to talk. She never scolded either Freddy or me, feeling, no doubt, that she began it by romping with us, and the matter was never discussed again.
I fell out of the very same window myself a year later. It was entirely my own fault and Mary's habit of being too free with her hands. I was quietly sitting on the window sill, watching the fat birds fly past the stone coping, and giving their children walking lessons up the tiles of the roof opposite, when Mary came in to do the room.
'Hullo, Boy!' she said, and put out her hand to stroke me. Now, I always back when people threaten to stroke me—it's a habit—and I backed on to nothing! Over I went, and I remember nothing more till I came down whack on the very identical dustbin that poor mother had cut herself on. I did not cut my lip, but I bit my tongue. I had to pick myself up, for though poor Mary, as she said, set off running downstairs as soon as she saw me begin to go, I got to the bottom first.
'Gracious goodness me! Whatever'll Miss May say? I've done for myself. Hold up yer head, will yer, and let's see if there's not some life in yer. Oh, you naughty aggravating thing to bleed at the lip so!'
'Wipe it off, can't you, Mary?' I said, and she did so with the hem of her cotton dress.
'You ain't much hurt after all!' she said, when she had cleaned me up. She did not notice that I had got my mouth all lop-sided with breaking one of my long teeth on the right side. I regretted this, for it was unsymmetrical. I was quite able to walk in, and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon on the best arm-chair.
Auntie May was out, so I didn't get any whisky, and when she came in I told her.
'Oh, what a long, long story!' said she. 'And what is it all about? Daddy, he is telling me something that has happened to him as hard as he can—such a piteous tale!'