"I can't," said he. "Open it! Open it!"

"All right, keep your temper," said I, and I opened it. A beastly blunt thing it was. "There you are; take it."

"I want to sit beside you," he said, when he'd got it.

"Do you? I don't want you. Haven't you got all the rest of the carriage?"

"Lift Tommy up," he whined.

I'd a good mind to chuck him out of the window.

"Lift yourself up," I said, "and shut up. I want to read." Then I'm bothered if the young cad didn't begin yelling! Just because I didn't lift him up. I never saw such a blub-baby in all my life. I couldn't make out what he was up to at first. I thought he was curtseying and seeing how long he could hold his breath. But when it did come out, my eye! I thought the engine-driver would hear. I was in a regular funk; I thought he'd got a fit or something; I never heard such yelling. He was black in the face over it, and dancing. I'd a good mind to pull the cord and stop the train. But I thought I'd see if I could pull him round first.

So I picked him up and stuck him up on the seat. Would you believe it, Jossy? The moment he was up he stopped howling and began grinning. It had all been a plant to get me to lift him up; and as soon as he'd made me do it he laughed at me!

I can tell you it's not pleasant to be made a fool of, even by a kid.

"I'm sitting beside you now," he said, as much as to tell me he'd scored one off me.

I was too disgusted to take any further notice of him. I suppose he saw I was riled, and began to be a bit civil. He pulled a nasty sticky bit of chocolate out of his pocket and held it up to my nose.

"A sweetie for you," he said.

I didn't want to have him yelling again, so I took it. Ugh!--all over dust and hairs, and half melted.

He watched me gulp it down, and then, to my relief, got hold of the _Boy's Own Paper_ and began looking at the pictures. He got sick of that soon, and went and looked out of the window. Then he came and sat by me again, and began to get jolly familiar. He stroked my cheeks with his horrid sticky hand, and then climbed up on the seat and tried to lark with my cap. Then just because I didn't shut him up, he clambered up on my back and nearly throttled me with his arms round my neck; and-- what do you think?--he began to kiss me!

That was a drop too much.

"Stow it, kid!" I said.

"Dear, dear!" he said, getting regularly maudlin, and kissing me at about two a second.

"Let go, do you hear? you're scrugging me."

"Nice mannie," he said.

I didn't know what to do until I luckily thought of my grub.

"Like a bun?" said I.

He let me go and was down beside me like a shot. You should have seen him walk into that bun! His face was all over it, and the crumbs were about an inch deep all over the place. When he got near the end of bun Number 1, he looked up as near choking as they make them, and said--

"I like buns awfully."

"All right, have another," said I. You see as his governor was going to meet him in town, it didn't matter much to me if he got gripes at night.

Anything to keep him quiet.

After the third bun he was about full up, and said he was thirsty. I couldn't make the young a.s.s understand that I had no water in the carriage. He kept on saying he was thirsty for half an hour, till we came to a station. I had made up my mind I would get into another carriage at the first stop we came to; but, somehow, it seemed rather low to leave the kid in the lurch. So I bought him a gla.s.s of milk instead, which set him up again. n.o.body else got in the carriage--knew better--and off we went again.

He'd got an awful lot to say for himself; about d.i.c.ky-birds and puff- puffs, and dogs, and trouser-pockets and rot of that sort, and didn't seem to care much whether I listened or no. Then, just when I thought he had about run dry and was getting sleepy, he rounded on me with--

"Tell me a story."

"Me? I don't know any stories."

"Oh yes; a funny one, please."

"I tell you I don't know any--what about?"

"`The Three Bears.'"

"I don't know anything about `three bears,'" said I.

"Do! do!! do!!!" he said, beginning to get crusty.

So I did my best. He kept saying I was all wrong, and putting me right; he might just as well have told it himself. I told him so. But he took no notice, and went on badgering me for more stories.

I can tell you I was getting sick of it!

When I made up a story for him to laugh at, he looked so solemn and said--

"Not that; a funny one."

And when I told him a fairy tale, he snapped up and said he didn't like it.

It ended in my telling him the "The Three Bears" over and over again.

It was about the sixty-fifth time of telling that we got to Vauxhall, and had to give up tickets.

"Now, young 'un, look out for your governor when we get in--I don't know him, you know."

The young a.s.s didn't know what I meant.

"Look out for daddy, then," I said.

He promptly stuck his head out of the window and said the ticket- collector was daddy; then that the porter was; then that a sweep on the platform was.

It wasn't very hopeful for spotting the real daddy at Waterloo. I told him to shut up and wait till we got there.

When we got there, I stuck him up at the window, as large as life, for his governor to see. There were a lot of people about; but I can tell you I was pretty queer when no one owned him. We hung about a quarter of an hour, asking everybody we met if they'd come to meet a kid, and watching them all go off in cabs, till we had the platform to ourselves.

"Here's a go, kid!" said I; "daddy's not come."

"I 'spex," says he, "when the middling-size bear found his porridge eaten up, he wondered who it was."

"Shut up about the bears," said I. "What about your gov.--your daddy?

Where does he live?"