Chapter 11

The Runaway Perambulator

I sometimes met David in public places such as the Kensington
Gardens, where he lorded it surrounded by his suite and wearing
the blank face and glass eyes of all carriage-people. On these
occasions I always stalked by, meditating on higher things,
though Mary seemed to think me very hardhearted, and Irene, who
had become his nurse (I forget how, but fear I had something to
do with it), ran after me with messages, as, would I not call and
see him in his home at twelve o'clock, at which moment, it
seemed, he was at his best.

No, I would not.

"He says tick-tack to the clock," Irene said, trying to snare me.

"Pooh!" said I.

"Other little 'uns jest says 'tick-tick,'" she told me, with a
flush of pride.

"I prefer 'tick-tick,'" I said, whereat she departed in dudgeon.

Had they had the sense to wheel him behind a tree and leave him,
I would have looked, but as they lacked it, I decided to wait
until he could walk, when it would be more easy to waylay him.
However, he was a cautious little gorbal who, after many threats
to rise, always seemed to come to the conclusion that he might do
worse than remain where he was, and when he had completed his
first year I lost patience with him.

"When I was his age," I said to Irene, "I was running about." I
consulted them casually about this matter at the club, and they
had all been running about at a year old.

I made this nurse the following offer: If she would bring the
dilatory boy to my rooms and leave him there for half an hour I
would look at him. At first Mary, to whom the offer was passed
on, rejected it with hauteur, but presently she wavered, and the
upshot was that Irene, looking scornful and anxious, arrived one
day with the perambulator. Without casting eyes on its occupant,
I pointed Irene to the door: "In half-an-hour," I said.

She begged permission to remain, and promised to turn her back,
and so on, but I was obdurate, and she then delivered herself of
a passionately affectionate farewell to her charge, which was
really all directed against me, and ended with these powerful
words: "And if he takes off your socks, my pretty, may he be
blasted for evermore."

"I shall probably take off her socks," I said carelessly to this.

Her socks. Do you see what made Irene scream?

"It is a girl, is it not?" I asked, thus neatly depriving her of
coherent speech as I pushed her to the door. I then turned round
to--to begin, and, after reflecting, I began by sitting down
behind the hood of his carriage. My plan was to accustom him to
his new surroundings before