Page:Georgie by Dorothea Deakin, 1906.djvu/169

"Georgie" let the autumn breeze cool his forehead. "We've had a hot morning."

I laughed. "I rather thought you would," said I. "Come in and tell Drusilla about it."

"No," said Georgie. "I can't. Little chap's ill."

"Ill?"

"Yes. That ass Borricole came sniffing round this morning and found it out. Old fool's a phrenologist, or some such rot, and he wanted to feel the boy's bumps with a view to adopting the kid himself. Thought he'd like to do me out of his money, I suppose. I wish he would; I don't want his ill-gotten gains, old sweep. He pinched and prodded poor old Taffy till he roared, and then told my mother the child was an incipient criminal of the lowest possible type."

I laughed.

"Poor little boy!" said I. "I suppose that put the finishing touch to the affair."

"You don't know my mother," said he. "She meant before that to pack us off to- 153