n talking to me about his son, I shall humor the old
fellow. It wouldn't be a Christian act to knock over his
harmless fancy."

I was very impatient to see if Mr. Jaffrey's illusion would stand the
test of daylight. It did. Elkanah Elkins Andrew Jackson Jaffrey was, so
to speak, alive and kicking the next morning. On taking his seat at the
breakfast-table, Mr. Jaffrey whispered to me that Andy had had a
comfortable night.

"Silas!" said Mr. Sewell, sharply, "what are you whispering about?"

Mr. Sewell was in an ill humor; perhaps he was jealous because I had
passed the evening in Mr. Jaffrey's room; but surely Mr. Sewell could
not expect his boarders to go to bed at eight o'clock every night, as he
did. From time to time during the meal Mr. Sewell regarded me unkindly
out of the corner of his eye, and in helping me to the parsnips he
poniarded them with quite a suggestive air. All this, however, did not
prevent me from repairing to the door of Mr. Jaffrey's snuggery when
night came.

"Well, Mr. Jaffrey, how's Andy this evening?"

"Got a tooth!" cried Mr. Jaffrey, vivaciously.

"No!"

"Yes, he has! Just through. Give the nurse a silver dollar. Standing
reward for first tooth."

It was on the tip of my tongue to express surprise that an infant a day
old should cut a tooth, when I suddenly recollected that Richard III.
was born with teeth. Feeling myself to be on unfamiliar ground, I
suppressed my criticism. It was well I did so, for in the next breath I
was advised that half a year had elapsed since the previous evening.

"Andy's had a hard six months of it," said Mr. Jaffrey, with the
well-known narrative air of fathers. "We've brought him up by hand. His
grandfather, by the way, was brought up by the bottle--" and brought
down by it, too, I added mentally, recalling Mr. Sewell's account of the
old gentleman's tragic end.

Mr. Jaffrey then went on to give me a history of Andy's first six
months, omitting no detail however insignificant or irrelevant. This
history I would in turn inflict upon the reader, if I were only certain
that he is one of those dreadful parents who, under the aegis of
friendship, bore you at a street-corner with that remarkable thing which
Freddy said the other day, and insist on singing to you, at an evening
party, the Iliad of Tommy's woes.

But to inflict this _enfantillage_ upon the unmarried reader would be
an act of wanton cruelty. So I pass over that part of Andy's biography,
a