you please take this child--that is, if you
have a germ-proof certificate about you to show to his mother. I want to
take off my bonnet and gloves."

"Take him? Of course I'll take him," laughed Alice; "and right under his
mother's nose, too," she added, with a playful grimace at Billy. "And
we'll make pat-a-cakes, and send the little pigs to market, and have
such a beautiful time that we'll forget there ever was such a thing in
the world as an old germ. Eh, babykins?"

"Babykins" cooed his unqualified approval of this plan; but his mother
looked troubled.

"That's all right, Alice. You may play with him," she frowned
doubtfully; "but you mustn't do it long, you know--not over five
minutes."

"Five minutes! Well, I like that, when I've come all the way from Boston
purposely to see him," pouted Alice. "What's the matter now? Time for
his nap?"

"Oh, no, not for--thirteen minutes," replied Billy, consulting the watch
at her belt. "But we never play with Baby more than five minutes at a
time. My 'Scientific Care of Infants' says it isn't wise; that with some
babies it's positively dangerous, until after they're six months old.
It makes them nervous, and forces their mind, you know," she explained
anxiously. "So of course we'd want to be careful. Bertram, Jr., isn't
quite four, yet."

"Why, yes, of course," murmured Alice, politely, stopping a pat-a-cake
before it was half baked.

The infant, as if suspecting that he was being deprived of his lawful
baby rights, began to fret and whimper.

"Poor itty sing," crooned Aunt Hannah, who, having divested herself of
bonnet and gloves, came hurriedly forward with outstretched hands. "Do
they just 'buse 'em? Come here to your old auntie, sweetems, and we'll
go walkee. I saw a bow-wow--such a tunnin' ickey wickey bow-wow on the
steps when I came in. Come, we go see ickey wickey bow-wow?"

"Aunt Hannah, _please!_" protested Billy, both hands upraised in horror.
"_Won't_ you say 'dog,' and leave out that dreadful 'ickey wickey'? Of
course he can't understand things now, really, but we never know when
he'll begin to, and we aren't ever going to let him hear baby-talk at
all, if we can help it. And truly, when you come to think of it, it is
absurd to expect a child to talk sensibly and rationally on the mental
diet of 'moo-moos' and 'choo-choos' served out to them. Our Professor of
Metaphysics and Ideology in our Child Study Course says that nothing is
so receptive and plast