Chapter VI: Part IV (4)

If I had been a man of a tragic turn of mind, and fond of giving vent to the passion of a scene, I would have walked up and down the room, striking myself on the brow or breast, and shouting, "Confusion! distraction!" and other powerful words which Mr Kean used to deliver with astonishing emphasis; but I had no talent for the intense, and threw myself on the sofa, exclaiming, "Here's a pretty go!"

And a pretty go it undoubtedly was--two black women and a saffron-coloured baby established with me, as if I had been married to a Hottentot; and my sister-in-law, as is very often the case, had come to attend to her nieces' morals and education.

"So! Mr Morgan, what is the meaning of all this?"

But before I had time for further exclamations, my friend Mr Morgan, who had come quietly into the room, interrupted me----

"Hush, my dear Sneezum--you are delighted, I'm sure. A most interesting incident--eh, Sneezum?"

"Oh! these things do all very well in a book," I began; "but, by jingo, sir, it's a very different thing in real life; and I tell you very fairly, I'd sooner be married at once than have all the troubles of bringing up a set of children that I have nothing to do with."

"Children! my dear Sneezum?"

"To be sure; how do I know that some more black women mayn't come--with some more children--till my house grows like a gallery of bronzed figures; but I'll sell them--see if I don't; I'll pack them all on an Italian boy's head-board, and sell them to the doctors--every one."

"You labour under a mistake, my dear Sneezum. You've got my letter?"

"Yes--I got it--but"----

"Oh, then, of course you are too happy to show such respect to the wishes of the defunct."

"What defunct?"

"Your uncle."

"What! uncle Sneezum?" and a wonderful light seemed to break in upon my mind.--"He sent this baby here?"

Mr Morgan nodded his head; and, being a man of great caution, he only put his finger in a mysterious manner alongside of his nose, and said--

"Secrets in all families, Sneezum."

"Oho! well--but the women--they're ugly customers, both of them; uncle Sneezum was no judge of beauty."

"The women! what do you mean?" said Mr Morgan.

"Ay, which of them is it? but you need hardly tell, for I should never know which of them you meant; they're a great deal liker each other than any two peas _I_ ever saw. Are we to call her Mrs Sneezum?"

Here Mr Morgan burst into a great laugh.

"My dear Sneezum, you are always trying to find out some wonderful scene or other to put into one of your books. No, no--these are two nurses; one will remain in charge of the child, the other returns immediately to Calcutta."

"And where will the one that is to remain--where will she live?" I asked with a fearful presentiment of something shockingly unpleasant. But before he had time to answer, the black visage of the nurse herself appeared at the door, smiling with more blindingly white teeth than ever.

"We have took dee room below dis--dee babb is in dee beautiful bed, and ve vill never leave Massa Sib--never no more--so nice!"

So I was booked, and felt it useless to complain.