Chapter 7

The Last of Timothy

So accomplished a person as the reader must have seen at once
that I made away with Timothy in order to give his little vests
and pinafores and shoes to David, and, therefore, dear sir or
madam, rail not overmuch at me for causing our painter pain.
Know, too, that though his sympathy ran free I soon discovered
many of his inquiries to be prompted by a mere selfish desire to
save his boy from the fate of mine. Such are parents.

He asked compassionately if there was anything he could do for
me, and, of course, there was something he could do, but were I
to propose it I doubted not he would be on his stilts at once,
for already I had reason to know him for a haughty, sensitive
dog, who ever became high at the first hint of help. So the
proposal must come from him. I spoke of the many little things
in the house that were now hurtful to me to look upon, and he
clutched my hand, deeply moved, though it was another house with
its little things he saw. I was ashamed to harass him thus, but
he had not a sufficiency of the little things, and besides my
impulsiveness had plunged me into a deuce of a mess, so I went on
distastefully. Was there no profession in this age of specialism
for taking away children's garments from houses where they were
suddenly become a pain? Could I sell them? Could I give them to
the needy, who would probably dispose of them for gin? I told
him of a friend with a young child who had already refused them
because it would be unpleasant to him to be reminded of Timothy,
and I think this was what touched him to the quick, so that he
made the offer I was waiting for.

I had done it with a heavy foot, and by this time was in a rage
with both him and myself, but I always was a bungler, and, having
adopted this means in a hurry, I could at the time see no other
easy way out. Timothy's hold on life, as you may have
apprehended, was ever of the slightest, and I suppose I always
knew that he must soon revert to the obscure. He could never
have penetrated into the open. It was no life for a boy.

Yet now, that his time had come, I was loath to see him go. I
seem to remember carrying him that evening to the window with
uncommon tenderness (following the setting sun that was to take
him away), and telling him with not unnatural bitterness that he
had got to leave me because another child was in need of all his
pretty things; and as the sun, his true father, lapt him in its
dancing arms, he sent his love to a lady of long ago whom he
called by the sweetest of names, not knowing in his innocence
that the little white birds are the birds that never have a
mother. I wished (so had the phantasy of Timothy taken
possession of me) that before he went