Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/429

 be a friend of Mrs. Wimbledon's; but she says she never saw him before in her life. Who has brought him? And I wonder why they didn't introduce him to me, or anything?"

Pinniger and Thripling shook their heads hopelessly.

"I don't at all like his manners!" continued Mrs. Moozeby. "He goes about as if my house belonged to him, and offers people wine and things! Just now, I do believe, he went down into the cellar and fetched up more champagne; and he addresses me as 'My dear' and 'My love'! I do wish my husband would come home! Look! look! He has actually had the impertinence to go up and fetch baby out of bed! I won't have it! It's too much! I don't care who brought him, I shall go and ask him what he means by it all!"

"It's all right, my love," said the stranger, tossing the baby up. "I'm sure baby's had a good sleep, and he wants to see the company. Don't you, Toddlums?"

"Actually knows baby's pet name!" exclaimed Mrs. Moozeby. "I have not the pleasure of knowing who you are, sir; but I consider that you are taking very great liberties in my house, and I must ask you to behave yourself if you remain here. Pray, who brought you here?"

The stranger stared a little at this speech, and then broke into a laugh of great enjoyment, though still with something of puzzledom in it.

"Kitchee! kitchee!" he said between his chuckles. "Mummy's funny, isn't she, Toddlums? Funny, wunny, wee! Fun-ny, wun-ny, widdle-de, wee!"

The infant seemed to enjoy the joke intensely, and laid a slobbery finger on the stranger's nose; but Mrs. Moozeby indignantly snatched it away, and hurried with it upstairs, exclaiming at every step, "Of all the impertinence!" "To think of it!" "Well!"

"Very extraordinary!" exclaimed the stranger. "What in the name of heaven can have put her out? Never saw her in such a tantrum." And he rushed upstairs after her; then there came a scream from above, and we hurried up, to find Mrs. M. at bay in a corner, with the baby in a safe position behind her, stamping her foot at the stranger and pouring forth volumes of wild indignation.

The stranger stood in the middle of the room scratching his head in a perplexed way, and occasionally exclaiming "My love!" and "Tut, tut!"

"Gad!" said Pinniger, "mad! Better send for a policeman."

"I do believe she is mad," said the stranger. "But I don't think a policeman would know what to do. Aren't burnt feathers, or smelling salts, or arnica, or something like that, good for this sort of thing?"

"Oh, why doesn't Mr. Moozeby come home?" cried Mrs. M., beating an angry tattoo with her shoe.

The stranger gazed at us and shook his head. "Mad!" he murmured; then he said, "My love, don't you know me?"

"No," cried Mrs. Moozeby, "I do not; and what is more, whoever had the impertinence to bring you here shall never enter this house again!"

"I do hope she won't take to tearing baby limb from limb," said the stranger ner-