By the time he
has waddled on his hands and knees twice round the room, broken the
boot-jack raking with it underneath the wardrobe, been bumped and
slapped and kicked by every piece of furniture that the room
contains, and ended up by stepping on that stud and treading it flat,
he has not a bitter or an angry thought left in him. All that
remains of him is sweet and peaceful. He fastens his collar with a
safety-pin, humming an old song the while.
Failing the gifts of Providence, the children--if in health--can
generally be depended upon to afford him an opening. Sooner or later
one or another of them will do something that no child, when he was a
boy, would have dared--or dreamed of daring--to even so much as think
of doing. The child, conveying by expression that the world, it is
glad to say, is slowly but steadily growing in sense, and pity it is
that old-fashioned folks can't bustle up and keep abreast of it,
points out that firstly it has not done this thing, that for various
reasons--a few only of which need be dwelt upon--it is impossible it
could have done this thing; that secondly it has been expressly
requested to do this thing, that wishful always to give satisfaction,
it has--at sacrifice of all its own ideas--gone out of its way to do
this thing; that thirdly it can't help doing this thing, strive
against fate as it will.
He says he does not want to hear what the child has got to say on the
subject--nor on any other subject, neither then nor at any other
time.
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