For Name and Fame | Page 5

roars more than other children. I only say he roars, and that loudly; so
you need not be afraid of there being anything the matter with his

tongue, or his lungs.
"What fidgets you young mothers are, to be sure!"
"And what heartless things you young fathers are, to be sure!" his wife
retorted, laughing. "Men don't deserve to have children. They do not
appreciate them, one bit."
"We appreciate them, in our way, little woman; but it is not a fussy way.
We are content with them as they are, and are not in any hurry for them
to run, or to walk, or to cut their first teeth. Tom is a fine little chap,
and I am very fond of him, in his way--principally, perhaps, because he
is your Tom--but I cannot see that he is a prodigy."
"He is a prodigy," Mrs. Ripon said, with a little toss of her head, "and I
shall go up to the nursery, to admire him."
So saying, she walked off with dignity; and Captain Ripon went out to
look at his horses, and thought to himself what a wonderful
dispensation of providence it was, that mothers were so fond of their
babies.
"I don't know what the poor little beggars would do," he muttered, "if
they had only their fathers to look after them; but I suppose we should
take to it, just as the old goose in the yard has taken to that brood of
chickens, whose mother was carried off by the fox.
"By the way, I must order some wire netting. I forgot to write for it,
yesterday."
Another two months. It was June, and now even Captain Ripon allowed
that Tom could say "Pa," and "Ma," with tolerable distinctness; but as
yet he had got no farther. He could now run about sturdily and, as the
season was warm and bright, and Mrs. Ripon believed in fresh air, the
child spent a considerable portion of his time in the garden.
One day his mother was out with him, and he had been running about
for some time. Mrs. Ripon was picking flowers, for she had a dinner

party that evening, and she enjoyed getting her flowers, and arranging
her vases, herself. Presently she looked round, but Tom was missing.
There were many clumps of ornamental shrubs on the lawn, and Mrs.
Ripon thought nothing of his disappearance.
"Tom," she called, "come to mamma, she wants you," and went on with
her work.
A minute or two passed.
"Where is that little pickle?" she said. "Hiding, I suppose," and she
went off in search.
Nowhere was Tom to be seen. She called loudly, and searched in the
bushes.
"He must have gone up to the house.
"Oh, here comes nurse. Nurse, have you seen Master Tom? He has just
run away," she called.
"No, ma'am, I have seen nothing of him."
"He must be about the garden then, somewhere. Look about, nurse.
Where can the child have hidden itself?"
Nurse and mother ran about, calling loudly the name of the missing
child. Five minutes later Mrs. Ripon ran into the study, where her
husband was going through his farm accounts.
"Oh, Robert," she said, "I can't find Tom!" and she burst into tears.
"Not find Tom?" her husband said, rising in surprise. "Why, how long
have you missed him?"
"He was out in the garden with me. I was picking flowers for the dinner
table and, when I looked round, he was gone. Nurse and I have been
looking everywhere, and calling, but we cannot find him."

"Oh, he is all right," Captain Ripon said, cheerfully. "Do not alarm
yourself, little woman. He must have wandered into the shrubbery. We
shall hear him howling, directly. But I will come and look for him."
No better success attended Captain Ripon's search than that which his
wife had met with. He looked anxious, now. The gardeners and
servants were called, and soon every place in the garden was ransacked.
"He must have got through the gate, somehow, into the park," Captain
Ripon said, hurrying in that direction. "He certainly is not in the garden,
or in any of the hothouses."
Some of the men had already gone in that direction. Presently Captain
Ripon met one, running back.
"I have been down to the gate, sir, and can see nothing of Master Tom;
but in the middle of the drive, just by the clump of laurels by the gate,
this boot was lying--just as if it had been put there on purpose, to be
seen."
"Nonsense!" Captain Ripon said. "What can that have to do with it?"
Nevertheless he took the boot, and looked at it. It was a roughly-made,
heavy boot, such as would be worn by a laboring man. He was