|It's not the sort of thing to tell 'em,” remarked Henry, as, with
his napkin over his arm, he leant against one of the pillars of
the verandah, and sipped the glass of Burgundy I had poured out
for him; “and they wouldn't believe it if you did tell 'em, not
one of 'em. But it's the truth, for all that. Without the clothes
they couldn't do it.”
“Who wouldn't believe what?” I asked. He had a curious habit, had
Henry, of commenting aloud upon his own unspoken thoughts, thereby
bestowing upon his conversation much of the quality of the double
acrostic. We had been discussing the question whether sardines
served their purpose better as a hors d'oeuvre or as a savoury;
and I found myself wondering for the moment why sardines,
above all other fish, should be of an unbelieving nature; while
endeavouring to picture to myself the costume best adapted to
display the somewhat difficult figure of a sardine. Henry put down
his glass, and came to my rescue with the necessary explanation.
“Why, women--that they can tell one baby from another, without its
clothes. I've got a sister, a monthly nurse, and she will tell you
for a fact, if you care to ask her, that up to three months of age
there isn't really any difference between 'em. You can tell a girl
from a boy and a Christian child from a black heathen, perhaps;
but to fancy you can put your finger on an unclothed infant and
say: 'That's a Smith, or that's a Jones,' as the case may be--why,
it's sheer nonsense. Take the things off 'em, and shake them up
in a blanket, and I'll bet you what you like that which is which
you'd never be able to tell again so long as you lived.”
I agreed with Henry, so far as my own personal powers of
discrimination might be concerned, but I suggested that to
Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Smith there would surely occur some means of
identification.
“So they'd tell you themselves, no doubt,” replied Henry; “and of
course, I am not thinking of cases where the child might have
a mole or a squint, as might come in useful. But take 'em in
general, kids are as much alike as sardines of the same age would
be. Anyhow, I knew a case where a fool of a young nurse mixed up
two children at an hotel, and to this day neither of those women
is sure that she's got her own.”
“Do you mean,” I said, “there was no possible means of
distinguishing?”
“There wasn't a flea-bite to go by,” answered Henry. “They had the
same bumps, the same pimples, the same scratches; they were the
same age to within three days; they weighed the same to an ounce;
and they measured the same to an inch. One father was tall and
fair, and the other was short and dark. The tall, fair man had a
dark, short wife; and the short, dark man had married a tall, fair
woman. For a week they changed those kids to and fro a dozen times
a day, and cried and quarrelled over them. Each woman felt sure
she was the mother of the one that was crowing at the moment,
and when it yelled she was positive it was no child of hers. They
thought they would trust to the instinct of the children. Neither
child, so long as it wasn't hungry, appeared to care a curse for
anybody; and when it was hungry it always wanted the mother that
the other kid had got. They decided, in the end, to leave it to
time. It's three years ago now, and possibly enough some likeness
to the parents will develop that will settle the question. All I
say is, up to three months old you can't tell 'em, I don't care
who says you can.”
He paused, and appeared to be absorbed in contemplation of the
distant Matterhorn, then clad in its rosy robe of evening. There
was a vein of poetry in Henry, not uncommon among cooks and
waiters. The perpetual atmosphere of hot food I am inclined to
think favourable to the growth of the softer emotions. One of the
most sentimental men I ever knew kept a ham-and-beef shop just off
the Farringdon Road. In the early morning he could be shrewd and
business-like, but when hovering with a knife and fork above the
mingled steam of bubbling sausages and hissing peas-pudding, any
whimpering tramp with any impossible tale of woe could impose upon
him easily.
“But the rummiest go I ever recollect in connection with a baby,”
continued Henry after a while, his gaze still fixed upon the
distant snow-crowned peaks, “happened to me at Warwick in the
Jubilee year. I'll never forget that.”
“Is it a proper story,” I asked, “a story fit for me to hear?”
On consideration, Henry saw no harm in it, and told it to me
accordingly.
* * * * *
He came by the 'bus that meets the 4.52. He'd a handbag and a sort
of hamper: it looked to me like a linen-basket. He wouldn't let
the Boots touch the hamper, but carried it up into his bedroom
himself. He carried it in front of him by the handles, and grazed
his knuckles at every second step. He slipped going round the bend
of the stairs, and knocked his head a rattling good thump against
the balustrade; but he never let go that hamper--only swore and
plunged on. I could see he was nervous and excited, but one gets
used to nervous and excited people in hotels. Whether a man's
running away from a thing, or running after a thing, he stops at
a hotel on his way; and so long as he looks as if he could pay his
bill one doesn't trouble much about him. But this man interested
me: he was so uncommonly young and innocent-looking. Besides, it
was a dull hole of a place after the sort of jobs I'd been used
to; and when you've been doing nothing for three months but
waiting on commercial gents as are having an exceptionally
bad season, and spoony couples with guide-books, you get a bit
depressed, and welcome any incident, however slight, that promises
to be out of the common.
I followed him up into his room, and asked him if I could do
anything for him. He flopped the hamper on the bed with a sigh of
relief, took off his hat, wiped his head with his handkerchief,
and then turned to answer me.
“Are you a married man?” says he.
It was an odd question to put to a waiter, but coming from a gent
there was nothing to be alarmed about.
“Well, not exactly,” I says--I was only engaged at that time, and
that not to my wife, if you understand what I mean--“but I know a
good deal about it,” I says, “and if it's a matter of advice--”
“It isn't that,” he answers, interrupting me; “but I don't want
you to laugh at me. I thought if you were a married man you
would be able to understand the thing better. Have you got an
intelligent woman in the house?”
“We've got women,” I says. “As to their intelligence, that's a
matter of opinion; they're the average sort of women. Shall I call
the chambermaid?”
“Ah, do,” he says. “Wait a minute,” he says; “we'll open it
first.”
He began to fumble with the cord, then he suddenly lets go and
begins to chuckle to himself.
“No,” he says, “you open it. Open it carefully; it will surprise
you.”
I don't take much stock in surprises myself. My experience is that
they're mostly unpleasant.
“What's in it?” I says.
“You'll see if you open it,” he says: “it won't hurt you.” And off
he goes again, chuckling to himself.
“Well,” I says to myself, “I hope you're a harmless specimen.”
Then an idea struck me, and I stopped with the knot in my fingers.
“It ain't a corpse,” I says, “is it?”
He turned as white as the sheet on the bed, and clutched the
mantlepiece. “Good God! don't suggest such a thing,” he says; “I
never thought of that. Open it quickly.”
“I'd rather you came and opened it yourself, sir,” I says. I was
beginning not to half like the business.
“I can't,” he says, “after that suggestion of yours--you've put me
all in a tremble. Open it quick, man; tell me it's all right.”
Well, my own curiosity helped me. I cut the cord, threw open the
lid, and looked in. He kept his eyes turned away, as if he were
frightened to look for himself.
“Is it all right?” he says. “Is it alive?”
“It's about as alive,” I says, “as anybody'll ever want it to be,
I should say.”
“Is it breathing all right?” he says.
“If you can't hear it breathing,” I says, “I'm afraid you're
deaf.”
You might have heard its breathing outside in the street. He
listened, and even he was satisfied.
“Thank Heaven!” he says, and down he plumped in the easy-chair by
the fireplace. “You know, I never thought of that,” he goes on.
“He's been shut up in that basket for over an hour, and if by any
chance he'd managed to get his head entangled in the clothes--I'll
never do such a fool's trick again!”
“You're fond of it?” I says.
He looked round at me. “Fond of it,” he repeats. “Why, I'm his
father.” And then he begins to laugh again.
“Oh!” I says. “Then I presume I have the pleasure of addressing
Mr. Coster King?”
“Coster King?” he answers in surprise. “My name's Milberry.”
I says: “The father of this child, according to the label inside
the cover, is Coster King out of Starlight, his mother being Jenny
Deans out of Darby the Devil.”
He looks at me in a nervous fashion, and puts the chair between
us. It was evidently his turn to think as how I was mad.
Satisfying himself, I suppose, that at all events I wasn't
dangerous, he crept closer till he could get a look inside the
basket. I never heard a man give such an unearthly yell in all my
life. He stood on one side of the bed and I on the other. The dog,
awakened by the noise, sat up and grinned, first at one of us and
then at the other. I took it to be a bull-pup of about nine months
old, and a fine specimen for its age.
“My child!” he shrieks, with his eyes starting out of his head,
“That thing isn't my child. What's happened? Am I going mad?”
“You're on that way,” I says, and so he was. “Calm yourself,” I
says; “what did you expect to see?”
“My child,” he shrieks again; “my only child--my baby!”
“Do you mean a real child?” I says, “a human child?” Some folks
have such a silly way of talking about their dogs--you never can
tell.
“Of course I do,” he says; “the prettiest child you ever saw in
all your life, just thirteen weeks old on Sunday. He cut his first
tooth yesterday.”
The sight of the dog's face seemed to madden him. He flung himself
upon the basket, and would, I believe, have strangled the poor
beast if I hadn't interposed between them.
“'Tain't the dog's fault,” I says; “I daresay he's as sick about
the whole business as you are. He's lost, too. Somebody's been
having a lark with you. They've took your baby out and put this
in--that is, if there ever was a baby there.”
“What do you mean?” he says.
“Well, sir,” I says, “if you'll excuse me, gentlemen in their
sober senses don't take their babies about in dog-baskets. Where
do you come from?”
“From Banbury,” he says; “I'm well known in Banbury.”
“I can quite believe it,” I says; “you're the sort of young man
that would be known anywhere.”
“I'm Mr. Milberry,” he says, “the grocer, in the High Street.”
“Then what are you doing here with this dog?” I says.
“Don't irritate me,” he answers. “I tell you I don't know myself.
My wife's stopping here at Warwick, nursing her mother, and in
every letter she's written home for the last fortnight she's said,
'Oh, how I do long to see Eric! If only I could see Eric for a
moment!'”
“A very motherly sentiment,” I says, “which does her credit.”
“So this afternoon,” continues he, “it being early-closing day,
I thought I'd bring the child here, so that she might see it, and
see that it was all right. She can't leave her mother for more
than about an hour, and I can't go up to the house, because the
old lady doesn't like me, and I excite her. I wish to wait here,
and Milly--that's my wife--was to come to me when she could get
away. I meant this to be a surprise to her.”
“And I guess,” I says, “it will be the biggest one you have ever
given her.”
“Don't try to be funny about it,” he says; “I'm not altogether
myself, and I may do you an injury.”
He was right. It wasn't a subject for joking, though it had its
humorous side.
“But why,” I says, “put it in a dog-basket?”
“It isn't a dog-basket,” he answers irritably; “it's a picnic
hamper. At the last moment I found I hadn't got the face to carry
the child in my arms: I thought of what the street-boys would call
out after me. He's a rare one to sleep, and I thought if I made
him comfortable in that he couldn't hurt, just for so short a
journey. I took it in the carriage with me, and carried it on my
knees; I haven't let it out of my hands a blessed moment. It's
witchcraft, that's what it is. I shall believe in the devil after
this.”
“Don't be ridiculous,” I says, “there's some explanation; it
only wants finding. You are sure this is the identical hamper you
packed the child in?”
He was calmer now. He leant over and examined it carefully. “It
looks like it,” he says; “but I can't swear to it.”
“You tell me,” I says, “you never let it go out of your hands. Now
think.”
“No,” he says, “it's been on my knees all the time.”
“But that's nonsense,” I says; “unless you packed the dog yourself
in mistake for your baby. Now think it over quietly. I'm not your
wife, I'm only trying to help you. I shan't say anything even if
you did take your eyes off the thing for a minute.”
He thought again, and a light broke over his face. “By Jove!”
he says, “you're right. I did put it down for a moment on the
platform at Banbury while I bought a 'Tit-Bits.'”
“There you are,” I says; “now you're talking sense. And wait a
minute; isn't to-morrow the first day of the Birmingham Dog Show?”
“I believe you're right,” he says.
“Now we're getting warm,” I says. “By a coincidence this dog was
being taken to Birmingham, packed in a hamper exactly similar to
the one you put your baby in. You've got this man's bull-pup, he's
got your baby; and I wouldn't like to say off-hand at this moment
which of you's feeling the madder. As likely as not, he thinks
you've done it on purpose.”
He leant his head against the bed-post and groaned. “Milly may
be here at any moment,” says he, “and I'll have to tell her the
baby's been sent by mistake to a Dog Show! I daresn't do it,” he
says, “I daresn't do it.”
“Go on to Birmingham,” I says, “and try and find it. You can catch
the quarter to six and be back here before eight.”
“Come with me,” he says; “you're a good man, come with me. I ain't
fit to go by myself.”
He was right; he'd have got run over outside the door, the state
he was in then.
“Well,” I says, “if the guv'nor don't object--”
“Oh! he won't, he can't,” cries the young fellow, wringing his
hands. “Tell him it's a matter of a life's happiness. Tell him--”
“I'll tell him it's a matter of half sovereign extra on to the
bill,” I says. “That'll more likely do the trick.”
And so it did, with the result that in another twenty minutes
me and young Milberry and the bull-pup in its hamper were in
a third-class carriage on our way to Birmingham. Then the
difficulties of the chase began to occur to me. Suppose by luck I
was right; suppose the pup was booked for the Birmingham Dog Show;
and suppose by a bit more luck a gent with a hamper answering
description had been noticed getting out of the 5.13 train; then
where were we? We might have to interview every cabman in the
town. As likely as not, by the time we did find the kid, it
wouldn't be worth the trouble of unpacking. Still, it wasn't my
cue to blab my thoughts. The father, poor fellow, was feeling, I
take it, just about as bad as he wanted to feel. My business was
to put hope into him; so when he asked me for about the twentieth
time if I thought as he would ever see his child alive again, I
snapped him up shortish.
“Don't you fret yourself about that,” I says. “You'll see a good
deal of that child before you've done with it. Babies ain't the
sort of things as gets lost easily. It's only on the stage that
folks ever have any particular use for other people's children.
I've known some bad characters in my time, but I'd have trusted
the worst of 'em with a wagon-load of other people's kids. Don't
you flatter yourself you're going to lose it! Whoever's got it,
you take it from me, his idea is to do the honest thing, and never
rest till he's succeeded in returning it to the rightful owner.”
Well, my talking like that cheered him, and when we reached
Birmingham he was easier. We tackled the station-master, and he
tackled all the porters who could have been about the platform
when the 5.13 came in. All of 'em agreed that no gent got out of
that train carrying a hamper. The station-master was a family man
himself, and when we explained the case to him he sympathised and
telegraphed to Banbury. The booking-clerk at Banbury remembered
only three gents booking by that particular train. One had been
Mr. Jessop, the corn-chandler; the second was a stranger, who had
booked to Wolverhampton; and the third had been young Milberry
himself. The business began to look hopeless, when one of Smith's
newsboys, who was hanging around, struck in:
“I see an old lady,” says he, “hovering about outside the station,
and a-hailing cabs, and she had a hamper with her as was as like
that one there as two peas.”
I thought young Milberry would have fallen upon the boy's neck and
kissed him. With the boy to help us, we started among the cabmen.
Old ladies with dog-baskets ain't so difficult to trace. She had
gone to a small second-rate hotel in the Aston Road. I heard all
particulars from the chambermaid, and the old girl seems to have
had as bad a time in her way as my gent had in his. They couldn't
get the hamper into the cab, it had to go on the top. The old lady
was very worried, as it was raining at the time, and she made
the cabman cover it with his apron. Getting it off the cab they
dropped the whole thing in the road; that woke the child up, and
it began to cry.
“Good Lord, Ma'am! what is it?” asks the chambermaid, “a baby?”
“Yes, my dear, it's my baby,” answers the old lady, who seems to
have been a cheerful sort of old soul--leastways, she was cheerful
up to then. “Poor dear, I hope they haven't hurt him.”
The old lady had ordered a room with a fire in it. The Boots took
the hamper up, and laid it on the hearthrug. The old lady said she
and the chambermaid would see to it, and turned him out. By this
time, according to the girl's account, it was roaring like a
steam-siren.
“Pretty dear!” says the old lady, fumbling with the cord, “don't
cry; mother's opening it as fast as she can.” Then she turns to
the chambermaid--“If you open my bag,” says she, “you will find a
bottle of milk and some dog-biscuits.”
“Dog-biscuits!” says the chambermaid.
“Yes,” says the old lady, laughing, “my baby loves dog-biscuits.”
The girl opened the bag, and there, sure enough, was a bottle of
milk and half a dozen Spratt's biscuits. She had her back to the
old lady, when she heard a sort of a groan and a thud as made
her turn round. The old lady was lying stretched dead on the
hearthrug--so the chambermaid thought. The kid was sitting up in
the hamper yelling the roof off. In her excitement, not knowing
what she was doing, she handed it a biscuit, which it snatched at
greedily and began sucking.
[Illustration: 0119]
Then she set to work to slap the old lady back to life again. In
about a minute the poor old soul opened her eyes and looked round.
The baby was quiet now, gnawing the dog-biscuit. The old lady
looked at the child, then turned and hid her face against the
chambermaid's bosom.
“What is it?” she says, speaking in an awed voice. “The thing in
the hamper?”
“It's a baby, Ma'am,” says the maid.
“You're sure it ain't a dog?” says the old lady. “Look again.”
The girl began to feel nervous, and to wish that she wasn't alone
with the old lady.
“I ain't likely to mistake a dog for a baby, Ma'am,” says the
girl. “It's a child--a human infant.”
The old lady began to cry softly. “It's a judgment on me,” she
says. “I used to talk to that dog as if it had been a Christian,
and now this thing has happened as a punishment.”
“What's happened?” says the chambermaid, who was naturally enough
growing more and more curious.
“I don't know,” says the old lady, sitting up on the floor. “If
this isn't a dream, and if I ain't mad, I started from my home at
Farthinghoe, two hours ago, with a one-year-old bulldog packed in
that hamper. You saw me open it; you see what's inside it now.”
“But bulldogs,” says the chambermaid, “ain't changed into babies
by magic.”
“I don't know how it's done,” says the old lady, “and I don't see
that it matters. I know I started with a bulldog, and somehow or
other it's got turned into that.”
“Somebody's put it there,” says the chambermaid; “somebody as
wanted to get rid of a child. They've took your dog out and put
that in its place.”
“They must have been precious smart,” says the old lady; “the
hamper hasn't been out of my sight for more than five minutes,
when I went into the refreshment-room at Banbury for a cup of
tea.”
“That's when they did it,” says the chambermaid, “and a clever
trick it was.”
The old lady suddenly grasped her position, and jumped up from the
floor. “And a nice thing for me,” she says. “An unmarried woman in
a scandal-mongering village! This is awful!”
“It's a fine-looking child,” says the chambermaid.
“Would you like it?” says the old lady.
The chambermaid said she wouldn't. The old lady sat down and
tried to think, and the more she thought the worse she felt. The
chambermaid was positive that if we hadn't come when we did the
poor creature would have gone mad. When the Boots appeared at the
door to say there was a gent and a bulldog downstairs enquiring
after a baby, she flung her arms round the man's neck and hugged
him.
We just caught the train to Warwick, and by luck got back to the
hotel ten minutes before the mother turned up. Young Milberry
carried the child in his arms all the way. He said I could have
the hamper for myself, and gave me half-a-sovereign extra on the
understanding that I kept my mouth shut, which I did.
I don't think he ever told the child's mother what had
happened--leastways, if he wasn't a fool right through, he didn't.