"
"I don't know any more of it, Toddie," I exclaimed in desperation.
"Oh, I'll tell it all to you, Uncle Harry," said Budge. And there,
before that audience, and HER, I was obliged to sing that dreadful
doggerel, line for line, as Budge repeated it. My teeth were set
tight, my brow grew clammy, and I gazed upon Toddie with terrible
thoughts in my mind. No one laughed--I grew so desperate that a
titter would have given relief. At last I heard some one whisper:--
"SEE how he loves him! Poor man!--he's in perfect agony over the
little fellow."
Had not the song reached its natural end just then, I believe I
should have tossed my wounded nephew over the piazza rail. As it
was, I set him upon his feet, announced the necessity of our
departure, and began to take leave, when Miss Mayton's mother
insisted that we should stay to dinner.
"For myself, I should be delighted, Mrs. Mayton," said I; "but my
nephews have hardly learned company manners yet. I'm afraid my
sister wouldn't forgive me if she heard I had taken them out to
dinner."
"Oh, I'll take care of the little dears," said Miss Mayton;
"they'll be good with ME, I KNOW."
"I couldn't be so unkind as to let you try it, Miss Mayton," I
replied. But she insisted, and the pleasure of submitting to her
will was so great that I would have risked even greater mischief.
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