“Oh, father!” whimpered Johnny, “when I wasn’t doing anything, I’m sure, but taking such care of Sally, and getting her to sleep. Oh, father!”
“I wish my little woman would come home!” said Mr. Tetterby, relenting and repenting, “I only wish my little woman would come home! I ain’t fit to deal with ’em. They make my head go round, and get the better of me. Oh, Johnny! Isn’t it enough that your dear mother has provided you with that sweet sister?” indicating Moloch; “isn’t it enough that you were seven boys before without a ray of gal, and that your dear mother went through what she DID go through, on purpose that you might all of you have a little sister, but must you so behave yourself as to make my head swim?”
Softening more and more, as his own tender feelings and those of his injured son were worked on, Mr. Tetterby concluded by embracing him, and immediately breaking away to catch one of the real delinquents. A reasonably good start occurring, he succeeded, after a short but smart run, and some rather severe cross-country work under and over the bedsteads, and in and out among the intricacies of the chairs, in capturing this infant, whom he condignly punished, and bore to bed. This example had a powerful, and apparently, mesmeric influence on him of the boots, who instantly fell into a deep sleep, though he had been, but a moment before, broad awake, and in the highest possible feather. Nor was it lost upon the two young architects, who retired to bed, in an adjoining closet, with great privacy and speed. The comrade of the Intercepted One also shrinking into his nest with similar discretion, Mr. Tetterby, when he paused for breath, found himself unexpectedly in a scene of peace.
“My little woman herself,” said Mr. Tetterby, wiping his flushed face, “could hardly have done it better! I only wish my little woman had had it to do, I do indeed!”
Mr. Tetterby sought upon his screen for a passage appropriate to be impressed upon his children’s minds on the occasion, and read the following.
“’It is an undoubted fact that all remarkable men have had remarkable mothers, and have respected them in after life as their best friends.’ Think of your own remarkable mother, my boys,” said Mr. Tetterby, “and know her value while she is still among you!”
He sat down again in his chair by the fire, and composed himself, cross-legged, over his newspaper.
“Let anybody, I don’t care who it is, get out of bed again,” said Tetterby, as a general proclamation, delivered in a very soft- hearted manner, “and astonishment will be the portion of that respected contemporary!” – which expression Mr. Tetterby selected from his screen. “Johnny, my child, take care of your only sister, Sally; for she’s the brightest gem that ever sparkled on your early brow.”
Johnny sat down on a little stool, and devotedly crushed himself beneath the weight of Moloch.
“Ah, what a gift that baby is to you, Johnny!” said his father, “and how thankful you ought to be! ’It is not generally known, Johnny,’” he was now referring to the screen again, “’but it is a fact ascertained, by accurate calculations, that the following immense percentage of babies never attain to two years old; that is to say – ’”
“Oh, don’t, father, please!” cried Johnny. “I can’t bear it, when I think of Sally.”
Mr. Tetterby desisting, Johnny, with a profound sense of his trust, wiped his eyes, and hushed his sister.
“Your brother ’Dolphus,” said his father, poking the fire, “is late to-night, Johnny, and will come home like a lump of ice. What’s got your precious mother?”
“Here’s mother, and ’Dolphus too, father!” exclaimed Johnny, “I think.”
“You’re right!” returned his father, listening. “Yes, that’s the footstep of my little woman.”
The process of induction, by which Mr Tetterby had come to the conclusion that his wife was a little woman, was his own secret. She would have made two editions of himself, very easily. Considered as an individual, she was rather remarkable for being robust and portly; but considered with reference to her husband, her dimensions became magnificent. Nor did they assume a less imposing proportion, when studied with reference to the size of her seven sons, who were but diminutive. In the case of Sally, however, Mrs. Tetterby had asserted herself, at last; as nobody knew better than the victim Johnny, who weighed and measured that exacting idol every hour in the day.