The Story of Louie by Oliver Onions

Author:Oliver Onions
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620128534
Publisher: Duke Classics

III

*

Her boy was born towards the end of June. Her mother did not visit her; instead, she sent a letter the chief characteristic of which was fright that she had dared even so far to disobey her brother. Louie understood, and in her dictated reply made allowances. She wondered whether she should write to Roy also, but in the end did not. The child was born at three o'clock in the morning; he was hardly six hours old when Buck arrived. The old champion stood looking down on his little girl's little boy. It was long before he spoke.

"I wasn't let see you," he said, two big tears rolling down his cheeks.

"You shall teach him to box, daddy," said Louie, smiling up at him.

But Buck shook his head. "No, no," he said gently—"except just to take care of himself—when he's fourteen, perhaps—if I'm here. Swimming, not sparring. They're a queer lot, them in the ring."

"You must go now, Mr. Causton," said Miss Dot.

The boy was thirty hours old when there arrived for him a great case of toys suitable for a child of four. Buck and Chaff had been round the toyshops together. Mrs. Buck, disobeying her husband for the only time in her life, came by stealth with a flannel binder that might have enwrapped a six-pounds' child; Jim (as Louie had decided to call him), weighed ten pounds, beef to the heel.

He throve at once, and continued to thrive.

The pair of them were the pride of that pagan Putney Nursing Home.

The first of the two incidents that may be allowed to close this portion of Louie's story was a second visit by Kitty Windus to Louie.

She came at ten o'clock at night, and only with difficulty obtained admission. She was allowed ten minutes, on the condition that Louie was awake. Louie was awake. Kitty neither lifted her veil nor asked to see the child. There was no trace now of her little maxims of conduct; she spoke agitatedly, and out of a stinging, jealous pain.

"I've come to ask you something, Miss Causton, and you've got to tell me," she announced, without preface. "I've a right to know."

"Speak a little lower," said Louie, glancing at the babe. "Sit down and tell me what it is."

But Kitty would not sit. Incapable of grandeurs of style, she nevertheless attempted them.

"I don't know whether you happen to be aware what people are saying about you," she said. Her boat-shaped hat and Inverness cape gave her a little the appearance of a scanty tree with which some topiary artist had done his best.

Louie could not help smiling a little; she could have that kind of thing out with herself without calling in Kitty.

"My dear! Of course I know they might be saying anything!" She drew her child a little closer to her.

"Suppose we keep the my dears till we've finished talking," said Kitty coldly. "I mean what they're saying at the Business School."

Louie spoke quietly. "I suppose you mean about me and my

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