'In conclusion, sir, I ask, without fear of contradiction, are we or are we not, in this matter of the National Debt, to be true to our national selves? 'Yours obediently, 'A CONSCIENTIOUS TAXPAYER.'
The signature troubled him. His pen hovered threateningly over it, and finally he struck it out and wrote instead: 'Paterfamilias.' He felt that this pseudonym was perhaps a little inapposite, but some impulse stronger than himself forced him to employ it.
'But haven't I told you that I was just writing the very name when Annie came in to warn me?'
Mr. Knight addressed the question, kindly and mildly, yet with a hint of annoyance, to his young wife, who was nursing their son with all the experience of three months' practice. It was Sunday morning, and they had finished breakfast in the sitting-room. Within an hour or two the heir was to be taken to the Great Queen Street Wesleyan Methodist Chapel for the solemn rite of baptism.
'Yes, lovey,' said Mrs. Knight. 'You've told me, time and again. But, oh Henry! Your name's just Henry Knight, and I want his to be just Henry Knight, too! I want him to be called after you.'
And the mother, buxom, simple, and adoring, glanced appealingly with bright eyes at the man who for her epitomized the majesty and perfections of his sex.
'He will be Henry Knight,' the father persisted, rather coldly.
Then Aunt Annie came into the room, pushing Tom before her. Tom was magnificently uncomfortable in his best clothes.
'What's the matter, Sue?' Aunt Annie demanded, as soon as she had noticed her sister's face.
And in a moment, in the fraction of a second, and solely by reason of Aunt Annie's question, the situation became serious. It jumped up, as domestic situations sometimes do, suddenly to the temperature at which thunderstorms are probable. It grew close, heavy, and perilous.
Mrs. Knight shook her head again. 'Nothing,' she managed to reply.
'Susan wants----' Mr. Knight began suavely to explain.
'He keeps on saying he would like him to be called----' Mrs. Knight burst out.
'No I don't--no I don't!' Mr. Knight interrupted. 'Not if you don't wish it!'
A silence followed. Mr. Knight drummed lightly and nervously on the table-cloth. Mrs. Knight sniffed, threw back her head so that the tears should not fall out of her eyes, and gently patted the baby's back with her right hand. Aunt Annie hesitated whether to speak or not to speak.