"I told you never to touch my encyclopedia," said he sternly. Robert had twice been caught on his stomach on the floor with a vast volume open under his chin, and his studies had been traced by vile thumb-marks.
Whenever anybody gave that child a piece of unsolicited information, he almost invariably replied, "I know."
"But hydrophobia!" cried Nellie. "How did you know about hydrophobia?"
"We had it in spellings last week," Robert explained.
"The deuce you did!" muttered Edward Henry.
The one bright fact of the many-sided and gloomy crisis was the very obvious truth that Robert was the most extraordinary child that ever lived.
"But when on earth did you get at the encyclopedia, Robert?" his mother exclaimed, completely at a loss.
"It was before you came in from Hillport," the wondrous infant answered. "After my leg had stopped hurting me a bit."
"But when I came in Nurse said it had only just happened!"
"Shows how much _she_ knew!" said Robert, with contempt.
"Does your leg hurt you now?" Edward Henry enquired.
"A bit. That's why I can't go to sleep, of course."
"Well, let's have a look at it." Edward Henry attempted jollity.
"Mother's wrapped it all up in boracic wool."
The bed-clothes were drawn down and the leg gradually revealed. And the sight of the little soft leg, so fragile and defenceless, really did touch Edward Henry. It made him feel more like an authentic father than he had felt for a long time. And the sight of the red wound hurt him. Still, it was a beautifully clean wound, and it was not a large wound.
"It's a clean wound," he observed judiciously. In spite of himself, he could not keep a certain flippant harsh quality out of his tone.
"Well, I've naturally washed it with carbolic," Nellie returned sharply.
"Of course he was bitten through his stocking?"
"Of course," said Nellie, re-enveloping the wound hastily, as though Edward Henry was not worthy to regard it.
"Well, then, by the time they got through the stocking, the animal's teeth couldn't be dirty. Every one knows that."
"Were you teasing Carlo?" Edward Henry demanded curtly of his son.
Whenever anybody asked that child for a piece of information, he almost invariably replied, "I don't know."
"How, you don't know? You must know whether you were teasing the dog or not!" Edward Henry was nettled.