Teddy | Page 3

looking up into Jupp's face in expectation of his admiring surprise.
The porter was again forced to act a part, and pretend that he could not guess anything.
"Dear me!" he said; "you have brought a lot of things! Going to take 'em with you to London, sir?"
"Ess. Da'n'ma tate tare of zem."
"No doubt, sir," replied Jupp, who then went on to inspect gingerly the different articles of the collection, which was very varied in character.
They consisted, in addition to the tortoise-shell kitten fore-mentioned, of a musical snuff-box, a toy model of a ship, a small Noah's ark, a half-consumed slice of bread and butter, an apple with a good-sized bite taken out of one side, a thick lump of toffee, and a darkish-brown substance like gingerbread, which close association in the bundle, combined with pressure, had welded together in one almost indistinguishable mass.
"I suppose, sir," observed Jupp inquiringly, picking up all the eatables and putting them together apart on the seat next the little man--"I suppose as how them's your provisions for the journey?"
"Ess. I ate dindin; an', dat's tea."
"Indeed, sir! and very nice things for tea too," said Jupp, beaming with admiration and good-humoured fun.
"I touldn't det any milk, or I'd bought dat too," continued the mite, explaining the absence of all liquid refreshment.
"Ah! that's a pity," rejoined the porter, thinking how well half a pint of milk would have mixed up with the other contents of the bundle; "but, perhaps, sir, the kitty would have lapped it up and there would have been none left. Would you like a cup of tea now, sir? I'm just agoing to have mine; and if you'd jine me, I'd feel that proud you wouldn't know me again!"
"Dank 'oo, I'm so dirsty," lisped the little man in affable acquiescence; and, the next moment, Jupp had spirited out a rough basket from under the seat in the corner, when extracting a tin can with a cork stopper therefrom, he put it on the fire to warm up.
From a brown-paper parcel he also turned out some thick slices of bread that quite put in the shade the half-eaten one belonging to the mite; and as soon as the tea began to simmer in the tin over the coals, he poured out some in a pannikin, and handed it to his small guest.
"Now, sir, we'll have a regular picnic," he said hospitably.
"All wite, dat's jolly!" shouted the other in great glee; and the two were enjoying themselves in the highest camaraderie, when, suddenly, the door of the waiting-room was opened from without, and the face of a buxom young woman peered in.
"My good gracious!" exclaimed the apparition, panting out the words as if suffering from short breath, or from the effects of more rapid exertion than her physique usually permitted. "If there isn't the young imp as comfortably as you please; and me a hunting and a wild-goose chasing on him all over the place! Master Teddy, Master Teddy, you'll be the death of me some day, that you will!"
Jupp jumped up at once, rightly imagining that this lady's unexpected appearance would, as he mentally expressed it, "put a stopper" on the mite's contemplated expedition, and so relieve him of any further personal anxiety on his behalf, he having been puzzling his brains vainly for the last half hour how to discover his whereabouts and get him home to his people again; but, as for the little man himself, he did not seem in the least put out by the interruption of his plans.
"Dat nussy," was all he said, clutching hold of Jupp's trouser leg, as at first, in an appealing way: "Don't 'et her, man, tate away poor kitty!"
"I won't sir, I promise you," whispered Jupp to comfort him; however, before he could say any more, the panting female had drawn nearer from the doorway and come up close to the fireplace, the flickering red light from which made her somewhat rubicund countenance appear all the ruddier.
CHAPTER TWO.
TELLS ALL ABOUT HIM.
"Pray, don't 'ee be angry wi' him, mum," said Jupp appealingly, as the somewhat flustered female advanced towards the mite, laying hands on his collar with apparently hostile intentions.
"I ain't a going to be angry," she replied a trifle crossly, as perhaps was excusable under the circumstances, carrying out the while, however, what had evidently been her original idea of giving the mite "a good shaking," and thereby causing his small person to oscillate violently to and fro as if he were crossing the Bay of Biscay in a Dutch trawler with a choppy sea running. "I ain't angry to speak of; but he's that tormenting sometimes as to drive a poor creature a'most out of her mind! Didn't I tell 'ee," she continued, turning round abruptly to the object of her wrath and administering