rah, kiss
me and say you love me to distraction." Altogether Cobbs seemed exactly,
and with delicious humour, to define the entire situation when he
declared, that "on the whole the contemplation of them two babies had a
tendency to make him feel as if he was in love himself--only he didn't
know who with!"

The delightful gravity of countenance (with a covert sparkle in the eye
where the daintiest indications of fun were given by the Reader) lent a
charm of its own to the merest nothing, comparatively, in the whimsical
dialogues he was reporting. Master Harry, for example, having confided
to Cobbs one evening, when the latter was watering the flowers, that he
was going on a visit to his grandmama at York--"'Are you indeed, sir? I
hope you'll have a pleasant time. I'm going into Yorkshire myself, when
I leave here.' 'Are you going to your grandmama's, Cobbs?' 'No, sir.
I haven't got such a thing.' 'Not as a grandmama, Cobbs?' 'No, sir.'"
Immediately after which, on the boy observing to his humble confidant,
that he shall be so glad to go because "Norah's going," Cobbs, naturally
enough, as it seemed, took occasion to remark, "You'll be all right
then, sir, with your beautiful sweetheart by your side." Whereupon we
realised more clearly than ever the delicate whimsicality of the whole
delineation, when we saw, as well as heard, the boy return a-flushing,
"Cobbs, I never let anybody joke about that when I can prevent them,"
Cobbs immediately explaining in all humility, "It wasn't a joke,
sir--wasn't so meant." No wonder, Boots had exclaimed previously: "And
the courage of that boy! Bless you, he'd have throwed off his little
hat and tucked up his little sleeves and gone in at a lion, he would--if
they'd happened to meet one, and she [Norah] had been frightened." At
the close of Boots's record of this last-quoted conversation with Master
Harry, came one of the drollest touches in the Reading--"'Cobbs,' says
that boy, 'I'll tell you a secret. At Norah's house, they have been
joking her about me, and [with a wondering look] pretending to laugh at
our being engaged! Pretending to make game of it, Cobbs!' 'Such, sir,' I
says, 'is the depravity of human natur.'" A glance during the utterance
of which words, either at the Reader himself or at his audience, was
something enjoyable.

Hardly less inspiriting in its way was the incidental mention, directly
after this by Cobbs, of the manner in which he gave Mr. Walmers notice,
not