ing
dark, perhaps would delay to light his lamp that he might torture himself
with looking at that pitiless shadow-play, that humble comedy-drama of
sweet, common, unattainable things that was every night renewed in those
two rooms over the garage at the bottom of the yard.

There was a third performer in the shadow-play now. You could hear him
roaring lustily at morn and noon and milky eve. The Wonderfullest Baby you
ever!

When W. Keyse was invited by Saxham to inspect his son and heir, crimson,
and pulpy, and squirming in a flannel wrap, the Adam's apple in the lean
throat of the proud father jumped, and his ugly, honest eyes blinked
behind salt water. The nipper had grabbed at his ear as he stooped down.
And that made the Fourth Time, and he hadn't even thanked the Doctor yet!

A date, he hoped, would arrive when a chalk or two of that mounting score
might be wiped off the board. He said so to Mrs. Keyse, the first time she
was allowed to sit up and play at doing a bit of needlework. Not that she
did a stitch, and charnce it! With her eyes--beautiful eyes, with that new
look of mother-love in them; proud eyes, with that inexhaustible store of
riches all her own,--worshipping the crinkly red snub nose and the funny
moving mouth, and the little downy head, and everything else that goes to
make up a properly-constituted Baby.

"I think the time'll come, deer. Watch out, an' one d'y you'll see!"

"I'll watch it!" affirmed W. Keyse. "And wot are you cranin' your neck
for, tryin' to look out o' winder? Blessed if I ever see such a precious
old Dutch!----"

The song was in the mouths of the people that year. She laughed, and
rubbed her pale cheek against his.

"You be my eyes, deer. Peep and see if the Doctor is in 'is room."

It was ten o'clock on a shining May morning, and the clouds that raced
over great grimy London were white, and there were patches of blue
between. The trees in the squares were dressed in new green leaves, and
the irises and ranunculuses in the parks were out, and the policemen had
shed their heavy uniforms, and instead of hyacinths behind the glass there
were pots of tulips in bloom upon the window-sills of the two rooms over
the garage. And the Doctor, who had been seeing patients ever since nine,
was sitting at the writing-table, said W. Keyse, with his 'ead upon 'is
'ands.

"Like as if 'e was tired, deer, or un'appy? Or tired an un'appy both?"

"Stryte, you 'ave it!" admitted W. Keyse,