"I say, Nancy!" with a second and rather lesser nudge, "if ever you see any symptoms of--of _that_--" (nodding toward the pulpit) "in me--" "If--" repeat I, scornfully, "of course I shall!" "Well, that is as it may be, but if you _do_, mind what I tell you--do not say any thing to anybody, but--_put an end to me_! it does not matter _how_; smother me with bolsters; run your bodkin up to its hilt in me--" "Even if I _did_," interrupt I, laughing, "I should never reach any vital part--you are _much_ too fat!" "I should not be so fat then," returns he, gravely, amiably overlooking the personality of my observation; "love would have pulled me down!" The Brat has nearly finished. He is nimbly descending the ladder, with a long, guttering dip in his right hand. "The other two--" begins Bobby, thoughtfully, turning his eyes from pulpit to font. "I do not mind _them_ half so much," interrupt I, indulgently; "they are not half so disgusting." "Has he done it yet?" (lowering his cheerful loud voice to an important whisper). I shake my head. "Not unless he has done it since luncheon! he had not _then_; I asked her." "I am beginning to think that _your_ old man's plan was the best, after all," continues Bobby, affably. "I thought him rather out of date, at the time, for applying to your parents, but, after all, it saved a great deal of trouble, and spared us a world of suspense." I am silent; swelling with a dumb indignation at the epithet bestowed on my Roger; but unable to express it outwardly, as I well know that, if I do, I shall be triumphantly quoted against myself. "Who will break it to Toothless Jack?" says Bobby, presently, with a laugh; "after all the expense he has been at, too, with those teeth! it is not as if it were a beggarly two or three, but a whole complete new set--thirty-two individual grinders!" "Such beauties, too!" puts in Tou Tou, cackling. "It is a thousand pities that they should be allowed to go out of the family," says Bobby, warmly. "Tou Tou, my child--" (putting his arm round her shoulders)--"a bright vista opens before you!--your charms are approaching maturity!--with a little encouragement he might be induced to lay his teeth--two and thirty, mind--at your feet!" Tou Tou giggles, and asserts that she will "kick them away, if he does." Bobby mildly but firmly remonstrates, and points out to her the impropriety and ingratitude of such a line of conduct. But his arguments, though acute and well put, are not convincing, and the subject is continued, with ever-increasing warmth, all the way home. CHAPTER XXIX.