“I know,” said Robert.

Whenever anybody gave that child a piece of unsolicited information he almost invariably replied, “I know.”

“But hydrophobia!” cried Nellie.  “How did you know about hydrophobia?”

“We had it in spellings last week,” Robert explained.

“The deuce you did!” muttered Edward Henry.

The one bright facet of the many-sided and gloomy crisis was the very obvious truth that Robert was the most extraordinary child that ever lived.

“But when on earth did you get at the Encyclopaedia, Robert?” his mother exclaimed, completely at a loss.

“It was before you came in from Hillport,” the wondrous infant answered.  “After my leg had stopped hurting me a bit.”

“But when I came in nurse said it had only just happened!”

“Shows how much she knew!” said Robert, with contempt.

“Does your leg hurt you now?” Edward Henry inquired.

“A bit.  That’s why I can’t go to sleep, of course.”

“Well, let’s have a look at it.”  Edward Henry attempted jollity.

“Mother’s wrapped it all up in boracic wool.”

The bed-clothes were drawn down and the leg gradually revealed.  And the sight of the little soft leg, so fragile and defenceless, really did touch Edward Henry.  It made him feel more like an authentic father than he had felt for a long time.  And the sight of the red wound hurt him.  Still, it was a beautifully clean wound, and it was not a large wound.

“It’s a clean wound,” he observed judiciously.  In spite of himself he could not keep a certain flippant harsh quality out of his tone.

“Well, I’ve naturally washed it with carbolic,” Nellie returned sharply.

He illogically resented this sharpness.

“Of course he was bitten through his stocking?”

“Of course,” said Nellie, re-enveloping the wound hastily, as though Edward Henry was not worthy to regard it.

“Well, then, by the time they got through the stocking the animal’s teeth couldn’t be dirty.  Everyone knows that.”

Nellie shut her lips.

“Were you teasing Carlo?” Edward Henry demanded curtly of his son.

“I don’t know.”

Whenever anybody asked that child for a piece of information he almost invariably replied, “I don’t know.”

“How—­you don’t know?  You must know whether you were teasing the dog or not!” Edward Henry was nettled.

The renewed spectacle of his own wound had predisposed Robert to feel a great and tearful sympathy for himself.  His mouth now began to take strange shapes and to increase magically in area, and beads appeared in the corners of his large eyes.

“I—­I was only measuring his tail by his hind leg,” he blubbered and then sobbed.

Edward Henry did his best to save his dignity.

“Come, come!” he reasoned, less menacingly.  “Boys who can read Encyclopaedias mustn’t be cry-babies.  You’d no business measuring Carlo’s tail by his hind leg.  You ought to remember that that dog’s older than you.”  And this remark, too, he thought rather funny, but apparently he was alone in his opinion.