And now, O Arcade, so much fairer than thy West End brother, we are told that thou art doomed, anon to be turned into an eatinghouse or a hive for usurers, something rankly useful. All thy delights are under notice to quit. The Noah's arks are packed one within another, with clockwork horses harnessed to them; the soldiers, knapsack on back, are kissing their hands to the dear foolish girls, who, however, will not be left behind them; all the four-footed things gather around the elephant, who is overful of drawing-room furniture; the birds flutter their wings; the man with the scythe mows his way through the crowd;the balloons tug at their strings; the ships rock under a swell of sail, everything is getting ready for the mighty exodus into the Strand. Tears will be shed.
So we bought the horse in the Lowther Arcade, Porthos, who thought it was for him, looking proud but uneasy, and it was sent to the bandbox house anonymously. About a week afterward I had the ill- luck to meet Mary's a husband in Kensington, so I asked him what he had called his little girl.
"It is a boy," he replied, with intolerable good-humour, "we call him David."And then with a singular lack of taste he wanted the name of my boy.
I flicked my glove. "Timothy," said I.
I saw a suppressed smile on his face, and said hotly that Timothy was as good a name as David. "I like it," he assured me, and expressed a hope that they would become friends. I boiled to say that I really could not allow Timothy to mix with boys of the David class, but I refrained, and listened coldly while he told me what David did when you said his toes were pigs going to market or returning from it, I forget which. He also boasted of David's weight (a subject about which we are uncommonly touchy at the club), as if children were for throwing forth for a wager.
But no more about Timothy. Gradually this vexed me. I felt what a forlorn little chap Timothy was, with no one to say a word for him, and I became his champion and hinted something about teething, but withdrew it when it seemed too surprising, and tried to get on to safer ground, such as bibs and general intelligence, but the painter fellow was so willing to let me have my say, and knew so much more about babies than is fitting for men to know, that I paled before him and wondered why the deuce he was listening to me so attentively.
You may remember a story he had told me about some anonymous friend. "His latest," said he now, "is to send David a rocking-horse!"
I must say I could see no reason for his mirth. "Picture it,"said he, "a rocking-horse for a child not three months old!"I was about to say fiercely: "The stirrups are adjustable," but thought it best to laugh with him. But I was pained to hear that Mary had laughed, though heaven knows I have often laughed at her.
"But women are odd," he said unexpectedly, and explained. It appears that in the middle of her merriment Mary had become grave and said to him quite haughtily, "I see nothing to laugh at."Then she had kissed the horse solemnly on the nose and said, "Iwish he was here to see me do it." There are moments when one cannot help feeling a drawing to Mary.
But moments only, for the next thing he said put her in a particularly odious light. He informed me that she had sworn to hunt Mr. Anon down.
"She won't succeed," I said, sneering but nervous.
"Then it will be her first failure," said he.
"But she knows nothing about the man."
"You would not say that if you heard her talking of him. She says he is a gentle, whimsical, lonely old bachelor.""Old?" I cried.
