tion.

"Why, women--that they can tell one baby from another, without its
clothes. I've got a sister, a monthly nurse, and she will tell you for a
fact, if you care to ask her, that up to three months of age there isn't
really any difference between 'em. You can tell a girl from a boy and a
Christian child from a black heathen, perhaps; but to fancy you can put
your finger on an unclothed infant and say: 'That's a Smith, or that's a
Jones,' as the case may be--why, it's sheer nonsense. Take the things
off 'em, and shake them up in a blanket, and I'll bet you what you like
that which is which you'd never be able to tell again so long as you
lived."

I agreed with Henry, so far as my own personal powers of discrimination
might be concerned, but I suggested that to Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Smith
there would surely occur some means of identification.

"So they'd tell you themselves, no doubt," replied Henry; "and of course,
I am not thinking of cases where the child might have a mole or a squint,
as might come in useful. But take 'em in general, kids are as much alike
as sardines of the same age would be. Anyhow, I knew a case where a fool
of a young nurse mixed up two children at an hotel, and to this day
neither of those women is sure that she's got her own."

"Do you mean," I said, "there was no possible means of distinguishing?"

"There wasn't a flea-bite to go by," answered Henry. "They had the same
bumps, the same pimples, the same scratches; they were the same age to
within three days; they weighed the same to an ounce; and they measured
the same to an inch. One father was tall and fair, and the other was
short and dark. The tall, fair man had a dark, short wife; and the
short, dark man had married a tall, fair woman. For a week they changed
those kids to and fro a dozen times a day, and cried and quarrelled over
them. Each woman felt sure she was the mother of the one that was
crowing at the moment, and when it yelled she was positive it was no
child of hers. They thought they would trust to the instinct of the
children. Neither child, so long as it wasn't hungry, appeared to care a
curse for anybody; and when it was hungry it always wanted the mother
that the other kid had got. They decided, in the end, to leave it to
time. It's three years ago now, and possibly enough some likeness to the
parents will develop that will settle the question. All I say is, up to
three months old you can't tell 'em, I don