That Little Beggar Part 10

"Very well," replied the doctor good-naturedly, "let us hear it;" at which point curiosity prompted me to go to the door of the night-nursery and look in.

Chris was in the act of drawing, with no little pomp, the large sheet of foolscap from beneath his pillow.

"Read it," he said, handing it to the doctor with pride. "I've printed it all myself."

The doctor laughed as he glanced at it.

"I think," he said, "you had better read it to me yourself, my little man."

"All right!" answered Chris. "It's all questions I want to ask you. I've written them down in case I forget them."

I here saw Briggs glance up uneasily, and was myself conscious of some feeling of disquietude. Could Chris's questions have anything to do with Briggs' remarks of the previous evening? A recollection came back to me which, till that moment, had slipped from my mind. Had not I heard a suggestion made by a naughty, struggling little mortal being carried back to bed against his will? "Shall I write down all the things you want to know, and all the things I want to know, and everything?"

A presentiment of coming confusion came upon me, and I half stepped forward to try and stop Chris going further in his proposed catechism.

But I was too late; he started without delay.

"May I have sugar-candy for my cough instead of barley-sugar, 'cause I've eaten so much barley-sugar?" he began pompously.

"Certainly," replied the doctor laughing; "we won't make any difficulty about that."

I gave an involuntary sigh of relief at hearing so harmless a question, whilst Briggs looked less anxious, and Granny smiled.

"Shall I be well enough to run my hoop to-morrow?" he went on, loudly and slowly, pretending to read from the sheet of foolscap he held. "I have a new one, and I'm tired of not running it," he added.

"Very well, we'll see," the doctor answered. "If the sun is out I daresay we shall be able to run our hoop a little bit to-morrow. But we must be careful not to over-tire ourselves. Anything more, my little man?"

"Yes. Why did you forget to leave the 'scription for my tonic yesterday?" continued Chris. "And will you remember it to-day?"

The doctor laughed, but with some constraint. Briggs looked up anxiously, and the smile vanished from Granny's face.

"What! Are we so fond of medicine?" the doctor asked, trying to speak as before, but unable to prevent a touch of annoyance being heard in his voice. "Little boys don't generally care for it so much. Yes, I will leave the prescription to-day."

"There, there, that will do," interposed Granny nervously, moving towards the door.

"But there is one other question I want to ask very much," Chris said, again feigning to refer to his paper.

"Yes?" said the doctor inquiringly, pausing in his progress towards the door.

"What do you do with your head when it isn't on your shoulders?" he asked, with the innocent expression always to be seen upon his face when he was creating the greatest awkwardness.

At this question Briggs became scarlet, looked as if she were about to speak, then appeared to alter her mind, and, turning her back, busied herself arranging the medicine-bottles on a little table near the crib.

The doctor himself appeared more bewildered than anything else.

"What do you mean?" he said. "Where can my head be except on my shoulders?"

"Well, that was what I thought," Chris said, triumphantly. "I said you'd be dead if your head was off your shoulders."

"I should have concluded that everyone must have been of the same opinion," he said, still mystified, whilst Granny shook her head gently, and frowned at the little beggar, hoping to prevent any further discussion of the subject. A futile hope. Chris was resolved to go to the bottom of the matter.

"Well, Briggs said it wasn't!" he exclaimed, "and what did she mean?"

The doctor's expression of mystification changed to one of annoyance, as he remarked with no little displeasure:

"I think you had better ask Briggs herself for an explanation of her remark," then left, accompanied by Granny--poor Granny, awkward and mortified beyond measure at the embarra.s.sing situation.

As for Briggs--who had certainly been the princ.i.p.al sufferer--her indignation burst out as soon as we saw the last of the doctor.

"Well, I never!" she exclaimed indignantly. Then with increased wrath, "Well, I never did!" After which two exclamations she paused to find suitable words in which to condemn the enormities of which Chris had been guilty.

For his part, he was not in the least disturbed by the general embarra.s.sment--the only one who was not.

He gazed up at Briggs with an expression of injured innocence.

"Are you cross, Briggs?" he asked. "Have I been naughty?"

"Have you been naughty, Master Chris?" she asked, with wrathful sarcasm.

"Oh, no! there _never_ was such a well-behaved young gentleman."

"Surely, Chris," I said, coming into the night-nursery, "you knew that you had no business to repeat to Dr. Saunders what Briggs said to me?"

He hung his head a little guiltily.

"I wanted him to 'member about the tonic," he replied; "and I did want to know what Briggs meant about his head coming off his shoulders.

Wasn't I a good boy?"

He received his answer, however, from Granny, who returned at this moment, a bright spot glowing in each of her faded, pink cheeks.

"My Chris!" she said, "my darling! What foolish thought made you ask such questions?"

Chris wrinkled his brows. "I want to be a very good boy and please you,"

he said querulously, and with a tremble in his voice; "and now Briggs scolds me, and now you scold me, and now I'm very unhappy."

"But don't you see, my pet," Granny said, more calmly; "don't you see what rude questions you asked Dr. Saunders? Oh, I felt ashamed of my little Chris!"

The little beggar at this point crawled to the bottom of his crib.

"I shall stay down here," said a m.u.f.fled voice. "I shall stay here always and never come back again, as my Granny is so unkind."

"But you must see," she reiterated, addressing a shapeless ma.s.s of bed-clothes, "that you asked the kind doctor very naughty questions, and very silly ones too. Did you not understand when Briggs said that he had no head, she meant that he had a bad memory, my child? Did you not understand that? And did you not think how insulting, how very insulting it was to ask him such a question? And about the tonic too. Surely, my darling, if you had thought you must have seen that. And, especially, how wrong it was to repeat what you overheard. Does not my pet see what his Granny means?"

The ma.s.s of bed-clothes moved impatiently, but there was no reply.

"As for me," put in Briggs with dignity, "I felt as if I was going to sink through the floor, I was that ashamed!"

"Yes, yes, and so were we all," agreed Granny. "Indeed, had not my Chris been ill, I should have felt obliged to punish him for his thoughtlessness. But he is sorry now; that Granny feels sure of. Is he not?"

Her question was received in sullen silence.