"O no!" said the child. " Nothing like that,"

"Once more. Let us try it again, dear."

A most hopeless business. This time it
swelled into four syllables. "It can't be
Tappitarver?" said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his
head with his hat in discomfiture.

"No! It ain't," the child quietly assented.

On her trying this unfortunate name once
more, with extraordinary efforts at distinctness,
it swelled into eight syllables at least.

"Ah! I think," said Barbox Brothers, with
a desperate air of resignation, "that we had
better give it up."

"But I am lost," said the child, nestling her
little hand more closely in his, " and you'll
take care of me, won't you?"

If ever a man were disconcerted by division
between compassion on the one hand, and the
very imbecility of irresolution on the other, here
the man was. "Lost!" he repeated, looking
down at the child. " I am sure / am. What
is to be done!"

"Where do you live?" asked the child, looking
up at him, wistfully.

"Over there," he answered, pointing vaguely
in the direction of his hotel.

"Hadn't we better go there?" said the child.

"Really," he replied, "I don't know but
what we had."

So they set off, hand in hand. He, through
comparison of himself against his little companion,
with a clumsy feeling on him as if he had
just developed into a foolish giant. She, clearly
elevated in her own tiny opinion by having got
him so neatly out of his embarrassment.

"We are going to have dinner when we get
there, I suppose?" said Polly.

"Well," he rejoined, " I—- yes, I suppose we
are."

"Do you like your dinner?" asked the child.

"Why, on the whole," said Barbox Brothers,
"yes, I think I do."

"I do mine," said Polly. " Have you any
brothers and sisters?"

"No. Have you?"

"Mine are dead."

"O!" said Barbox Brothers. With that
absurd sense of unwieldiness of mind and body
weighing him down, he would have not known
how to pursue the conversation beyond this curt
rejoinder, but that the child was always ready
for him.

"What," she asked, turning her soft hand
coaxingly in his, " are you going to do to
amuse me, after dinner?"

"Upon my soul, Polly," exclaimed Barbox
Brothers, very much at a loss, " I have not the
slightest idea!"

"Then I tell you what," said Polly. " Have
you got any cards at your house?"

"Plenty," said Barbox Brothers, in a boastful
vein.

"Very well. Then I'll build houses, and
you shall look at me. You mustn't blow, you
know."

"O no!" said Barbox Brothers. "No, no,
no. No blowing. Blowing's not fair."

He flattered himself that he had said this
pretty well for an idiotic monster; but the
child, instantly perceiving the awkwardness of
his attempt to adapt himself to her level,
utterly destroyed his hopeful opinion of himself
by saying, compassionately: " What a funny
man you are!"

Feeling, after this melancholy failure, as if he
every minute grew bigger and heavier in person,
and weaker in mind, Barbox gave himself up for
a bad job. No giant ever submitted more
meekly to be led in triumph by all-conquering
Jack, than he to be bound in slavery to
Polly.

"Do you know any stories?" she asked
him.

He was reduced to the humiliating confession:
"No."

"What a dunce you must be, mustn't you?"
said Polly.

He was reduced to the humiliating confession:
"Yes."

"Would you like me to teach you a story?
But you must remember it, you know, and be
able to tell it right to somebody else
afterwards?"

He professed that it would afford him the
highest mental gratification to be taught a
story, and that he would humbly endeavour to
retain it in his mind. Whereupon Polly, giving
her hand a new little turn in his, expressive of
settling down for enjoyment, commenced a long
romance, of which every relishing clause began
with the words: " So this" or " And so this."
As, " So this boy;" or, " So this fairy;" or,
"And so this pie was four yards round, and two
yards and a quarter deep." The interest of
the romance was derived from the intervention
of this fairy to punish this boy for having a
greedy appetite. To achieve which purpose,
this fairy made this pie, and this boy ate and
ate and ate, and his cheeks swelled and swelled
and swelled. There were many tributary
circumstances, but the forcible interest culminated
in the total consumption of this pie, and the
bursting of this boy. Truly he was a fine
sight, Barbox Brothers, witk serious attentive
face, and ear bent down, much jostled on the
pavements of the busy town, but afraid of
losing a single incident of the epic, lest he
should be examined in it by-and-by and found
deficient.

Thus they arrived at the hotel. And there he
had to say at the bar, and said awkwardly
enough: " I have fouud a little girl!"

The whole establishment turned out to look
at the little girl. Nobody knew her; nobody
could make out her name, as she set it forth—-
except one chambermaid, who said it was
Constantinople—- which it wasn't.

"I will dine with my young friend in a private
room," said Barbox Brothers to the hotel authorities,
"and perhaps you will be so good as let
the police know that the pretty baby is here. I
suppose she is sure to be inquired for, soon, if
she has not been already. Come along,
Polly."