Mr. Reginald soon undeceived him. "She is to be my wife, you know.
Don't you think she will make a capital one?" Before David could
decide this point for him, the kaleidoscopic mind of the terrible
infant had taken another turn. "Come into the stable-yard; I'll show
you Tom," cried young master, enthusiastically. Finally, David had to
make the boy a kite. When made it took two hours for the paste to dry;
and as every ten minutes spent in waiting seemed an hour to one of Mr.
Reginald's kidney, as the English classics phrase it, he was almost in
a state of frenzy at last, and flew his new kite with yells. But after
a bit he missed a familiar incident; "It doesn't tumble down; my other
kites all tumble down."
"More shame for them," said David, with a dash of contempt, and
explained to him that tumbling down is a flaw in a kite, just as
foundering at sea is a vile habit in a ship, and that each of these
descents, however picturesque to childhood's eye, implies a
construction originally derective, or some little subsequent
mismanagement. It appeared by Reginald's retort that when his kite
tumbled he had the tumultuous joy of flying it again, but, by its
keeping the air like this, monotony reigned; so he now proposed that
his new friend should fasten the string to the pump-handle, and play
at ball with him beneath the kite. The good-natured sailor consented,
and thus the little voluptuary secured a terrestrial and ever-varying
excitement, while occasional glances upward soothed him with the mild
consciousness that there was his property still hovering in the
empyrean; amid all which, poor love-sick David was seized with a
desire to hear the name of her he loved, and her praise, even from
these small lips.
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