“That's a real nice boy--you said so, didn't you, Lottie? And I wish he'd come and play with me,” said the little fellow by the young lady's side, as Billy turned away, gracefully thanked, to come back to me with his cheeks roseate with blushes.
As he heard this, Billy sidled along the edge of the tank for a moment, then faced about and said:
“P'rhaps I will some day--where do you live?”
“I live on East Seventeenth Street with papa--and Lottie stays there too now--she's my cousin: where d'you live?”
“Oh, I live close by--right on that big green square where I guess the nurse takes you once in a while,” said Billy patronizingly. Then, looking up pluckily at the young lady, he added, “I never saw you out there.”
“No, Jimmy's papa has only been in his new house a little while, and I've just come to visit him.”
“Say, will you come and play with me some time?” chimed in the inextinguishable Jimmy. “I've got a cooking stove--for real fire--and blocks and a ball with a string.”
Billy, who belonged to a club for the practice of the great American game, and was what A. Ward would call the most superior battest among the I. G. B. B. C, or “Infant Giants,” smiled from that altitude upon Jimmy, but promised to go and play with him the next Saturday afternoon.
Late that evening, after we had got home and dined, as I sat in my room over Pickwick, with a sedative cigar, a gentle knock at the door told of Daniel. I called “Come in!” and, entering with a slow dejected air, he sat down by my fire. For ten minutes he remained silent, though occasionally looking up as if about to speak, then dropping his head again to ponder on the coals. Finally I laid down Dickens, and spoke myself.
“Oh--ah--I don't know. That is, I wish I knew how to tell you.”
I studied him for a few moments with kindly curiosity, then answered: “Perhaps I can save you the trouble by cross-examining it out of you. Let's try the method of elimination. I know that you are not harassed by any economical considerations, for you've all the money you want; and I know that ambition doesn't trouble you, for your tastes are scholarly. This narrows down the investigation of your symptoms--listlessness, general dejection, and all--to three causes: Dyspepsia, religious conflicts, love. Now is your digestion awry?”
