"My own! Uncle is tum!" cried the
doting mamma, and, in a burst of
enthusiasm, she caught him up in her arms.

"Yee-ough!" yelled the child.

I rallied in desperate haste my lately
acquired knowledge.

"Clk!" said I. " Catchee—that is to
say, boh! How d'ye do? And heigh-
diddle-diddle."

"Dear — he's beyond that," said Mattie,
laughing merrily. "Kissy-wissy. Make
friends. Talk, my own." And without a
moment's hesitation, she placed him in my
unaccustomed arms.

Rather to my surprise, the young gentleman
offered no resistance, only making a
clutch at a curl on my forehead, which (for
reasons of my own) I evaded, compromising
for the temporary misuse of my nose.

A little discouraged by the failure of my
first conversational efforts, I now resolved
to let my godson take the lead, and to
adapt the stature of my observations to
his. But, whether dumb with joy at his
uncle's "tumming," or from some occult
reason, not one word would he utter.
Nevertheless, either the little animal was
endowed with a histrionic genius far beyond
his years, or he really was glad to see me.
He smiled, after a grave, controlled fashion,
and once executed a deliberate wink, as
though to intimate that, when time and
inclination should serve, we might have a
good deal to say to one another. Presently
he waxed fidgetty, and, wrestling himself
down, toddled to his cot, and returned,
carrying in his small fists, something which
he offered to my lips. Prudence dictating
a previous examination, there revealed
themselves certain substances, whose
crumbly and attenuated character,
pronounced them, past question, to be half-
sucked lumps of sugar!

After this, our friendship ripened fast.
He really was an engaging little man, and
his odd fancy for his old uncle not a myth
at all. Without any vast interchange of
ideas, we arrived at a degree of harmony
that I should not have imagined possible.
Imitation is said to be the most delicate
form of flattery, and my godson was never
tired of copying my ways. Hence, his little
ways, hitherto innocuous, became a source
of considerable inconvenience, if not worse,
and were attended with results quite other
than what was intended.

Among the rest of my personal effects
had attracted the young gentleman's
notice, perhaps the most beloved was a
brightly-decorated Turkish pipe, cut, as I
had been at some trouble to explain, from a
jasmine tree, a very, very, very long way off!
This latter circumstance appeared to give
Babs, as he was usually called, some
disturbance.

One day the pipe was missing. Great
tumult and inquiry. Babs silent and
meditative. Next morning the pipe had
returned to its accustomed haunt. Eagerly
charging it, I began to inhale the fragrant
fumes, when — Pheugh! Whish! Psish!
An earwig! Psha! Another! Two!
Twenty! Out they came in batches,
scampering in every direction! Babs, the
secret being too much for his little bosom,
burst into tears, and avowed that he had
connived at the pipe's passing the night in
the heart of a jasmine bush. "It was
such a very, very long way from home."
Babs evidently has a vague idea that the
night had been one of festival and welcome
for the distant cousin from the Levant!

Growing (as my hairdresser has for thirty
years assured me) a little thin on the top
of my head, I had, of late, adopted a few
supplementary locks, and these, in the
intimacy of friendship, I did not hesitate
to dress in the presence of Babs. One day
I missed both Babs and hair, and proceeding,
in some agitation, to the nursery,
surprised my young friend busily engaged,
with his mother's scissors, in removing
the very last curls from Isidor's
masterpiece.

"Dessing 'oor hair!" cried Babs,
triumphantly, waving the denuded scalp
before my horror-stricken eyes. He had
wished to save me trouble.

My godson was in the habit of paying
me early visits in my room. Now, I
confess to one unjustifiable propensity, that
of smoking in bed; but not conceiving it
necessary, at present, to warn my visitor
against so evil an example, I puffed away
tranquilly, as though he were not there. I
shall never forget one terrible morning,
when, roused by violent screams and shouts
of "Fire!" from the upper story, I dashed
up-stairs, through a stifling cloud of smoke,
to find, happily, poor Babs already rescued,
and descending, wrapped in a wet blanket,
into the arms of his agonised friends. He
had been trying to smoke in bed, but,
novice as he was, and embarrassed with the
bed-clothes, the result had been limited to
fire!

These little misadventures, which, in
fact, were only so many proofs of love and
confidence, only served to cement our
alliance, and my visit was drawing to a