“My poor, unwitting little boy! For you, too, the time shall come when
ingratitude shall be your portion. You are a bachelor yourself--you
drink cinder-tea, but the day shall arrive when you shall be told you
know less about it than the hand that pours it out. Play while you can.
Your least word is heeded now; but afterwards you shall cry wisdom in
the nursery and shall not be regarded.”
Chris saw somehow that he was the subject of remark, and now, trimly
toileted and elaborately combed, was ready for a story grim in giant and
spiced with goblin. His mother, laughing at my apostrophe, made a chubby
fleshy fold in the childish cheek that was pressed against her own, and
looked at me in a way that admitted my capacity in fairy lore, if it
discounted my more practical qualifications.
“Now, Chris,” she said, “Mr. Butterfield is going to tell you just a
short story, and I’m going to receive my callers. Don’t be long, Mr.
Butterfield. Come, Caroline.”
She vanished, and I entered the magic land of giants.