All perambulators lead to the Kensington Gardens.

Not, however, that you will see David in his perambulator muchlonger, for soon after I first shook his faith in his mother, itcame to him to be up and doing, and he up and did in the BroadWalk itself, where he would stand alone most elaborately poised,signing imperiously to the British public to time him, andlooking his most heavenly just before he fell. He fell with adump, and as they always laughed then, he pretended that this washis funny way of finishing.

That was on a Monday. On Tuesday he climbed the stone stair ofthe Gold King, looking over his shoulder gloriously at each step,and on Wednesday he struck three and went into knickerbockers.For the Kensington Gardens, you must know, are full of shortcuts, familiar to all who play there; and the shortest leads fromthe baby in long clothes to the little boy of three riding on thefence. It is called the Mother's Tragedy.

If you are a burgess of the gardens (which have a vocabulary oftheir own), the faces of these quaint mothers are a clock to you,in which you may read the ages of their young. When he is threethey are said to wear the knickerbocker face, and you may take itfrom me that Mary assumed that face with a sigh; fain would shehave kept her boy a baby longer, but he insisted on his rights,and I encouraged him that I might notch another point againsther. I was now seeing David once at least every week, his mother,who remained culpably obtuse to my sinister design, havinginstructed Irene that I was to be allowed to share him with her,and we had become close friends, though the little nurse was evera threatening shadow in the background. Irene, in short, did notimprove with acquaintance. I found her to be high and mighty,chiefly, I think, because she now wore a nurse's cap withstreamers, of which the little creature was ludicrously proud.She assumed the airs of an official person, and always talked asif generations of babies had passed through her hands. She wasalso extremely jealous, and had a way of signifying disapprovalof my methods that led to many coldnesses and even bickeringsbetween us, which I now see to have been undignified. I broughtthe following accusations against her:

That she prated too much about right and wrong.

That she was a martinet.

That she pretended it was a real cap, with real streamers, whenshe knew Mary had made the whole thing out of a muslin blind. Iregret having used this argument, but it was the only one thatreally damped her.

On the other hand, she accused me of spoiling him.

Of not thinking of his future.

Of never asking him where he expected to go to if he did suchthings.

Of telling him tales that had no moral application.

Of saying that the handkerchief disappeared into nothingness,when it really disappeared into a small tin cup, attached to myperson by a piece of elastic.

To this last charge I plead guilty, for in those days I had apathetic faith in legerdemain, and the eyebrow feat (which,however, is entirely an affair of skill) having yielded such goodresults, I naturally cast about for similar diversions when itceased to attract. It lost its hold on David suddenly, as I wasto discover was the fate of all of them; twenty times would hecall for my latest, and exult in it, and the twenty-first time(and ever afterward) he would stare blankly, as if wondering whatthe man meant. He was like the child queen who, when the greatjoke was explained to her, said coldly, "We are not amused," and,I assure you, it is a humiliating thing to perform before aninfant who intimates, after giving you ample time to make yourpoints, that he is not amused. I hoped that when David was ableto talk--and not merely to stare at me for five minutes and thensay "hat"--his spoken verdict, however damning, would be lessexpressive than his verdict without words, but I wasdisillusioned. I remember once in those later years, when hecould keep up such spirited conversations with himself that hehad little need for any of us, promising him to do somethingexceedingly funny with a box and two marbles, and after he hadwatched for a long time he said gravely, "Tell me when it beginsto be funny."

I confess to having received a few simple lessons in conjuring,in a dimly lighted chamber beneath a shop, from a gifted youngman with a long neck and a pimply face, who as I entered took abarber's pole from my pocket, saying at the same time, "Come,come, sir, this will never do." Whether because he knew toomuch, or because he wore a trick shirt, he was the mostdepressing person I ever encountered; he felt none of theartist's joy, and it was sad to see one so well calculated togive pleasure to thousands not caring a dump about it.

The barber's pole I successfully extracted from David's mouth,but the difficulty (not foreseen) of knowing how to dispose of abarber's pole in the Kensington Gardens is considerable, therealways being polite children hovering near who run after you andrestore it to you. The young man, again, had said that anyonewould lend me a bottle or a lemon, but though these were articleson which he seemed ever able to lay his hand, I found (what I hadnever noticed before) that there is a curious dearth of them inthe Gardens. The magic egg-cup I usually carried about with me,and with its connivance I did some astonishing things withpennies, but even the penny that costs sixpence is uncertain, andjust when you are saying triumphantly that it will be found inthe egg-cup, it may clatter to the ground, whereon someungenerous spectator, such as Irene, accuses you of fibbing andcorrupting youthful minds. It was useless to tell her, throughclenched teeth, that the whole thing was a joke, for sheunderstood no jokes except her own, of which she had the mostimmoderately high opinion, and that would have mattered little tome had not David liked them also. There were times when I couldnot but think less of the boy, seeing him rock convulsed overantics of Irene that have been known to every nursemaid since theyear One. While I stood by, sneering, he would give me theecstatic look that meant, "Irene is really very entertaining,isn't she?"

We were rivals, but I desire to treat her with scrupulousfairness, and I admit that she had one good thing, to wit, hergutta-percha tooth. In earlier days one of her front teeth, asshe told me, had fallen out, but instead of then parting with it,the resourceful child had hammered it in again with a hair-brush,which she offered to show me, with the dents on it. This tooth,having in time passed away, its place was supplied by one ofgutta-percha, made by herself, which seldom came out except whenshe sneezed, and if it merely fell at her feet this was a signthat the cold was to be a slight one, but if it shot across theroom she knew she was in for something notable. Irene's toothwas very favourably known in the Gardens, where the perambulatorsused to gather round her to hear whether it had been doinganything to-day, and I would not have grudged David hisproprietary pride in it, had he seemed to understand that Irene'sone poor little accomplishment, though undeniably showy, waswithout intellectual merit. I have sometimes stalked away fromhim, intimating that if his regard was to be got so cheaply Ibegged to retire from the competition, but the Gardens are thepleasantest club in London, and I soon returned. How I scouredthe Gardens looking for him, and how skilful I became at pickinghim out far away among the trees, though other mothers imitatedthe picturesque attire of him, to Mary's indignation. I also cutIrene's wings (so to speak) by taking her to a dentist.

And David did some adorable things. For instance, he used mypockets as receptacles into which he put any article he might nothappen to want at the moment. He shoved it in, quite as if theywere his own pockets, without saying, By your leave, and perhapsI discovered it on reaching home--a tin-soldier, or a pistol--whenI put it on my mantleshelf and sighed. And here is anotherpleasant memory. One day I had been over-friendly to anotherboy, and, after enduring it for some time David up and struckhim. It was exactly as Porthos does, when I favour other dogs(he knocks them down with his foot and stands over them, lookingvery noble and stern), so I knew its meaning at once; it wasDavid's first public intimation that he knew I belonged to him.

Irene scolded him for striking that boy, and made him stand indisgrace at the corner of a seat in the Broad Walk. The seat atthe corner of which David stood suffering for love of me, is theone nearest to the Round Pond to persons coming from the north.

You may be sure that she and I had words over this fiendishcruelty. When next we met I treated her as one who no longerexisted, and at first she bridled and then was depressed, and asI was going away she burst into tears. She cried because neitherat meeting nor parting had I lifted my hat to her, a foolishcustom of mine, of which, as I now learned to my surprise, shewas very proud. She and I still have our tiffs, but I have neversince then forgotten to lift my hat to Irene. I also made herpromise to bow to me, at which she affected to scoff, saying Iwas taking my fun of her, but she was really pleased, and I tellyou, Irene has one of the prettiest and most touching little bowsimaginable; it is half to the side (if I may so express myself),which has always been my favourite bow, and, I doubt not, sheacquired it by watching Mary.

I should be sorry to have it thought, as you may now be thinking,that I look on children as on puppy-dogs, who care only for play.Perhaps that was my idea when first I tried to lure David to myunaccustomed arms, and even for some time after, for if I am tobe candid, I must own that until he was three years old I soughtmerely to amuse him. God forgive me, but I had only one day aweek in which to capture him, and I was very raw at the business.

I was about to say that David opened my eyes to the folly of it,but really I think this was Irene's doing. Watching her withchildren I learned that partial as they are to fun they are movedalmost more profoundly by moral excellence. So fond of babes wasthis little mother that she had always room near her for onemore, and often have I seen her in the Gardens, the centre of adozen mites who gazed awestruck at her while she told themseverely how little ladies and gentlemen behave. They werechildren of the well-to-pass, and she was from Drury Lane, butthey believed in her as the greatest of all authorities on littleladies and gentlemen, and the more they heard of how theseromantic creatures keep themselves tidy and avoid pools and waittill they come to a gate, the more they admired them, thoughtheir faces showed how profoundly they felt that to be littleladies and gentlemen was not for them. You can't think whathopeless little faces they were.

Children are not at all like puppies, I have said. But dopuppies care only for play? That wistful look, which themerriest of them sometimes wear, I wonder whether it means thatthey would like to hear about the good puppies?

As you shall see, I invented many stories for David, practisingthe telling of them by my fireside as if they were conjuringfeats, while Irene knew only one, but she told it as never hasany other fairy-tale been told in my hearing. It was theprettiest of them all, and was recited by the heroine.

"Why were the king and queen not at home?" David would ask herbreathlessly.

"I suppose," said Irene, thinking it out, "they was away buyingthe victuals."

She always told the story gazing into vacancy, so that Davidthought it was really happening somewhere up the Broad Walk, andwhen she came to its great moments her little bosom heaved. Never shall I forget the concentrated scorn with which the princesaid to the sisters, "Neither of you ain't the one what wore theglass slipper."

"And then--and then--and then--," said Irene, not artistically toincrease the suspense, but because it was all so glorious to her.

"Tell me--tell me quick," cried David, though he knew the tale byheart.

"She sits down like," said Irene, trembling in second-sight, "andshe tries on the glass slipper, and it fits her to a T, and thenthe prince, he cries in a ringing voice, 'This here is my truelove, Cinderella, what now I makes my lawful wedded wife.'"

Then she would come out of her dream, and look round at thegrandees of the Gardens with an extraordinary elation. "Her, aswas only a kitchen drudge," she would say in a strange soft voiceand with shining eyes, "but was true and faithful in word anddeed, such was her reward."

I am sure that had the fairy godmother appeared just then andtouched Irene with her wand, David would have been interestedrather than astonished. As for myself, I believe I havesurprised this little girl's secret. She knows there are nofairy godmothers nowadays, but she hopes that if she is alwaystrue and faithful she may some day turn into a lady in word anddeed, like the mistress whom she adores.

It is a dead secret, a Drury Lane child's romance; but what anamount of heavy artillery will be brought to bear against it inthis sad London of ours. Not much chance for her, I suppose.

Good luck to you, Irene.