room was in those upper regions. He
used to see the boy there in private. They had interviews together
every morning when he shaved; Rawdon minor sitting on a box by his
father's side and watching the operation with never-ceasing pleasure.
He and the sire were great friends. The father would bring him
sweetmeats from the dessert and hide them in a certain old epaulet box,
where the child went to seek them, and laughed with joy on discovering
the treasure; laughed, but not too loud: for mamma was below asleep
and must not be disturbed. She did not go to rest till very late and
seldom rose till after noon.

Rawdon bought the boy plenty of picture-books and crammed his nursery
with toys. Its walls were covered with pictures pasted up by the
father's own hand and purchased by him for ready money. When he was
off duty with Mrs. Rawdon in the park, he would sit up here, passing
hours with the boy; who rode on his chest, who pulled his great
mustachios as if they were driving-reins, and spent days with him in
indefatigable gambols. The room was a low room, and once, when the
child was not five years old, his father, who was tossing him wildly up
in his arms, hit the poor little chap's skull so violently against the
ceiling that he almost dropped the child, so terrified was he at the
disaster.

Rawdon minor had made up his face for a tremendous howl--the severity
of the blow indeed authorized that indulgence; but just as he was going
to begin, the father interposed.

"For God's sake, Rawdy, don't wake Mamma," he cried. And the child,
looking in a very hard and piteous way at his father, bit his lips,
clenched his hands, and didn't cry a bit. Rawdon told that story at
the clubs, at the mess, to everybody in town. "By Gad, sir," he
explained to the public in general, "what a good plucked one that boy
of mine is--what a trump he is! I half-sent his head through the
ceiling, by Gad, and he wouldn't cry for fear of disturbing his mother."

Sometimes--once or twice in a week--that lady visited the upper regions
in which the child lived. She came like a vivified figure out of the
Magasin des Modes--blandly smiling in the most beautiful new clothes
and little gloves and boots. Wonderful scarfs, laces, and jewels
glittered about her. She had always a new bonnet on, and flowers
bloomed perpetually in it, or else magnificent curling ostrich
feathers, soft and snowy as camellias. She nodded twice or thrice
patronizingly