There is a silence.
"Harold!"
With extreme deliberation he appears in the doorway. I recognise him
largely by intuition, so utterly smeared up is he from crawling in
single file the entire length of the hall on his stomach. Beneath that
thick deposit of rich alluvial soil I assume that my son exists. I ask
him what he has been doing with the baby.
He had been doing nothing at all. He had merely tied her by one leg to a
chair and pretended to scalp her with a pair of ninepins. He had
performed a war dance around her and every time his ritual progress
brought him face to face with the baby he made believe to brain her, but
he only meant to see how near he could come without actually touching
her, and he would strike the chair instead. He didn't know why the baby
shrieked.
"Harold," I said, "do you feel the sacred innocence of childhood
brooding in you?"
He was alarmed, but bravely attempted a smile.
"Ah, father!" he said.