As I could never learn to whirl smoke-wreaths, I twirled my thumbs during the interruption of our session that ensued. The bashful and evasive Charley upset every chair in the room, save mine, behind which he was ultimately captured and punished. “Pshaw! Who minds Jack?” said Alice, stooping to right her rocking-chair. “Ugh! How smoky your moustache is!” “I never heard anything like that while we were engaged.” “And for a very good reason,” said she, with a toss of her head. “Illustrious Bœotian!” sighed Charley. Alice threw herself into her chair, panting and laughing. “Where was I?” “You were without a compass, in a word-ocean without a shore.” “On the contrary, I was on the shore, and poking holes in the sand. ‘Well,’ said the Don, ‘what should be done to a man who was so unfortunate as to be a Fiend in Human Shape?’ “‘I should say that he needed a guardian. He lacks the warning voice of a mother.’ “‘But we will suppose that he has no mother.’ “‘Then let him find one. How, for example,’ said I, feeling my way, ‘how do you think that I would look the character.’ And I put on a demure expression. “‘Admirably, admirably!’ “‘Then you adopt me as a mother?’ “‘Yes.’ “‘A mother with a warning voice?’ I added, beginning to find my soundings. “‘A mother with a voice soft as a zephyr!’ “‘No, with a voice of warning.’ “Up to this time he had been watching me somewhat with the expression of a child when some one is about to touch the spring of a Jack-in-the-Box. Up I was going to bounce, in some high antic or other. But just here his countenance took on a look of perplexity. I suppose my voice became one of warning. Can’t I talk seriously _sometimes_, Mr. Frobisher?” “You? Oh, Lord!” “Well, you needn’t be so emphatic. What will Jack think?” “Pshaw! Who minds Jack? Ouch!” “Well, where was I? Ah! ‘No, with a voice of warning,’ said I, looking rather grave, I suppose. ‘Very well,’ said he, ‘with a voice of warning.’ ‘I am your mother, then?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And you are my son?’ ‘Yes, mumma,’ said he, smiling, and holding up his knee with interlaced fingers and looking very comfortable.