Daniel knew how much his parents wished him to make a figure in the world, and only blamed himself for his failure, magnanimously forgetting that they had crushed out the faculties which enable a man to mint the small change of everyday society in the exclusive cultivation of such as fit him for smelting its ponderous ingots. With that merciful blindness which alone prevents all our lives from becoming a horror of nerveless reproach, his parents were equally unaware of their share in the harm done him, when they ascribed to his delicate organization the fact that, at an age when love runs riot in all healthy blood, he could not see a balmoral without his cheeks rivaling the most vivid stripe in it. They flattered themselves that he would outgrow his bashfulness, but Daniel had no such hope, and frequently confided in me that he thought he should never marry at all.
About two hours after Billy's disappearance under his mother's convoy, the defender of the oppressed returned to my room bearing the dog under his arm. His cheeks shone with washing like a pair of waxy Spitzenbergs, and other indignities had been offered him to the extent of the brush and comb. He also had a whole jacket on.
“Well, Billy,” said I, “what are you going to do with your dog?”
“I don't know what I'm going to do. I've a great mind to be a bad, disobedient boy with him, and _not_ have my days long in the land which the Lord my God giveth me.”
“I can't help it. They won't be long if I don't mind ma, she says; and she wants me to be mean, and put Crab out in the street to have Patsy catch him and tie coffee-pots to his tail. I--I--I--”
Here my small nephew dug his fist into his eye and looked down.
I told Billy to stop where he was, and went to intercede with Lu. She was persuaded to entertain the angels of magnanimity and heroism in the disguise of a young fighting character, and to accept my surety for the behavior of his dog. Billy and I also obtained permission to go out together and be gone the entire afternoon.
We put Crab on a comfortable bed of rags in an old shoe box, and then strolled, hand-in-hand, across that most delightful of New York breathing-places, Stuyvesant Square.
“Uncle Teddy!” exclaimed Billy with ardor; “I wish I could do something to show you how much I think of you for being so good to me. I don't know how. Would it make you happy if I was to learn a hymn for you--a smashing big hymn--six verses, long metre, and no grumbling?”