L Allen Harker

The Vagaries of Tod and Peter L Allen Harker

A small boy coming down to the drawing-room at half-past five for the sacred hour of play, found a visitor absorbing his mother's attention. For five minutes or so he politely refrained from interrupting their conversation, and he wandered about the room, a little disconsolate perhaps, but in that state of being described by nurses as "not a bit of trouble." When, however, the five minutes lengthened into ten, he felt that direct action of some sort was imperative. So he advanced upon the lingering guest, laid small, imperative hands upon her knee; and lifting an anxious face to hers, enquired in honeyed tones: "Is you going to stay very much longer?"That was in the forgotten, by some regretted, by many derided, nineties. The other day I was having tea with a charming friend, wise mother of many sons, when the youngest, aged two, came for the sacred hour. It was pleasant in that drawing-room and I made no haste to go. Whereupon he came to me and, with a gracious, even a gallant, gesture, held out his hand to me with the utmost friendliness, conversing the while perpetually and emphatically in a manner difficult for the uninitiated to follow. Pleased and flattered, I took the kind little hand, which pulled me to my feet. He then firmly led me to the door and out to the top of the staircase, and was preparing to escort me downstairs and to the front door, when his mother ran after us and fetched us back....