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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 547
and ears tingled, and for once Mrs. Philip was thankful at
hearing her baby cry, for it gave her a pretext for leaving the
room and flying to the nursery, whither the other two ladies
accompanied her.
Meanwhile Master Franklin went on with his artless conversation.
" Mr. Philip, why do they say you are wicked ? You do not
look wicked ; and I am sure Mrs. Philip does not look wicked—
she looks very good."
"Who says I am wicked ?" asks Mr. Firmin of his candid
young relative.
" Oh, ever so many ! Cousin Ringwood says so ; and Blanche
says so; and Woolcomb says so; only I don't like him, he's so
very brown. And when they heard you had been to dinner,
'Has that beast been here?' Ringwood says. And I don't like
him a bit. But I like you, at least I think I do. You only have
oranges for dessert. We always have lots of things for dessert
at home. You don't, I suppose, because you've got no money—
only a very little."
" Well : I have got only a very little," says Philip.
"I have some—ever so much. And I'll buy something for
your wife; and I shall like to have you better at home than
Blanche, and Ringwood, and that Woolcomb; and they never give
me anything. You can't, you know ; because you are so very poor
—you are ; but we'll often send you things, I daresay. And I'll
have an orange, please, thank you. And there's a chap at our
school, and his name is Suckling, and he ate eighteen oranges, and
wouldn't give one away to anybody. Wasn't he a greedy pig?
And I have wine with my oranges—I do : a glass of wine—thank
you. That's jolly. But you don't have it often, I suppose, because
you're so very poor."
I am glad Philip's infant could not understand, being yet of too
tender age, the compliments which Lady Ringwood and her daughter
passed upon her. As it was, the compliments charmed the mother,
for whom indeed they were intended, and did not inflame the
unconscious baby's vanity.
What would the polite mamma and sister have said, if they
had heard that unlucky Franklin's prattle ? The boy's simplicity
amused his tall cousin. " Yes," says Philip, " we are very poor,
but we are very happy, and don't mind—that's the truth."
" Mademoiselle, that's the German governess, said she wondered
how you could live at all ; and I don't think you could if you ate
as much as she did. You should see her eat : she is such a oner at
eating. Fred, my brother, that's the one who is at college, one day
tried to see how much Mademoiselle Wallfisch could eat, and she