"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.
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.