And Aunt Annie went. She neglected to close the door behind her; Tom
closed it, noiselessly.

Never before had he been left alone with the baby. He examined with
minute care such parts of the living organism as were visible, and then,
after courageously fighting temptation, and suffering defeat, he touched
the baby's broad, flat nose. He scarcely touched it, yet the baby
stirred and mewed faintly. Tom began to rock the cradle, at first
gently, then with nervous violence. The faint mew became a regular and
sustained cry.

He glanced at the door, and decided that he would make a further effort
to lull the ridiculous agitation of this strange and mysterious being.
Bending down, he seized the baby in both hands, and tried to nurse it as
his two aunts nursed it. The infant's weight was considerable; it
exceeded Tom's estimate, with the result that, in the desperate process
of extracting the baby from the cradle, the cradle had been overset, and
now lay on its beam-ends.

'Hsh--hsh!' Tom entreated, shooing and balancing as best he could.

Then, without warning, Tom's spirit leapt into anger.

'Will you be silent, sir!' he demanded fiercely from the baby, imitating
Uncle Henry's tone. 'Will you be silent, sir!' He shook the infant, who
was astounded into a momentary silence.

The next thing was the sound of footsteps approaching rapidly along the
passage. Tom had no leisure to right the cradle; he merely dropped the
baby on the floor by the side of it, and sprang to the window.

'You naughty, naughty boy!' Aunt Annie shrieked. 'You've taken baby out
of his cradle! Oh, my pet! my poor darling! my mumsy! Did they, then?'

'I didn't! I didn't!' Tom asserted passionately. 'I've never stirred
from here all the time you were out. It fell out itself!'

'Oh!' screamed Aunt Annie. 'There's a black place on his poor little
forehead!'

In an instant the baby's parents were to the rescue, and Tom was
declaring his innocence to the united family.

'It fell out itself!' he repeated; and soon he began to think of
interesting details. 'I saw it. It put its hand on the edge of the
cradle and pulled up, and then it leaned to one side, and then the
cradle toppled over.'

Of course the preposterous lie was credited by nobody.

'There's one thing!' said Mrs. Knight, weeping for the second time that
morning. 'I won't have him christened with a black forehead, that I
won't!'

At this point, Aunt Annie, who had scurried to the kit