Now comes the sweetest of cradle-songs, the professor with damper on
his strings, the professor's wife scarcely touching the piano.
The strain ends. The man is in tears--not the tears of an orator. He
glances at the child and the great eyes are likewise dim. "Kiss me,
Davy!"
But it is as if Davy were too hard at work with an article. He must
break from the room, the man suddenly wishing that the child could find
its chief relief in him.
"Yet I made him take the medicine," thinks the man, in terror of that
night.
The professor will take some little thing to eat--a glass of beer,
perhaps--but he must not stay.
They go below, where Davy has told the cook of the extraordinary
professor who can scarcely speak English. Davy has asked him if he
could spell Josephus. "After all," says Davy, "I'd be ashamed to play
so loud if I couldn't spell Josephus. It hurt my head."
"Yes, you darlint," says the cook; "here's some ice cream. I don't
want you to wait. Eat it now."
"I can't eat anything but medicine," says Davy, "and I have to eat that
or papa wouldn't love me. Do you think he loves me?"
"Ah, yes, darlint. Don't ye's be afraid of that. Thim as don't love
the likes of ye's is scarcer than hen's teeth."
"T-double-e-t-h," observes the scholarly Davy.
"My! my!" cries the cook.
At the table, the professor will not care for any beer. Well, let it
be a little. Well, another glass. Yes, the glasses are not large.
Another? Yes.
"Ah! Meester Lockwin," he says at last, "I like to play for you. You
look very tired, I hear you will go to the--to the--"
The professor must be aided by his good wife.
"To the Congress--ah, yes, to the Congress."
"If I shall be elected to-morrow," smiles the candidate.
The friends go to their homes. It is not late. Esther has explained
the need her husband has of both diversion and rest. "He is naturally
an unhappy man," she says, "but Davy and I are making him happier."
"Of all the men I have ever known," says one of the guests to his wife,
as they walk the few steps they must take, "I think David Lockwin is
the most blessed. All that money could do was dedicated to his
education. He is a brilliant man naturally. He has married Esther
Wandrell. He is sure to be elected to-morrow, and I heard a very
prominent man say the other day that he wouldn't be surprised if
Lockwin should some day be President of the United States. They call
him the people's idol. I don't know but he is."
"I don't believe he appreciates his good fortune," says the wife.
"Perhaps he has had too much."
CHAPTER X
ELECTED
Yes, this is distinctly happy--this night at home, in the chamber after
the music, with Davy to sleep over here, too.
"There, Davy," urges Esther, "you have romped and romped. You have not
slept a wink to-day. It is far too late for children to be up, David.
I only took down the stove to-day, for fear we might need it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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