He guessed that the babe was Mary’s babe, though he was quite incapable of recognizing it.  And he could not imagine what George was doing with it (and the perambulator) in Bursley, nor why he had vanished so swiftly into the Tiger, nor why he had not come out again.  The whole situation was in the acutest degree mysterious.  It was also in the acutest degree amazing.  Samuel Peel had no facility in baby-talk, so, to tranquillize Georgie, he attempted soothing strokes or pats on such portions of Georgie’s skin as were exposed.  Whereupon Georgie shrieked, and even dogs stood still and lifted noses inquiringly.

Then Jos Curtenty, very ancient but still a wag, passed by, and said: 

“Hello, Mr Peel.  Truth will out.  And yet who’d ha’ suspected you o’ being secretly married!”

Samuel Peel could not take offence, because Jos Curtenty, besides being old and an alderman, and an ex-Mayor, was an important member of his election committee.  Of course such a friendly joke from an incurable joker like Jos Curtenty was all right; but supposing enemies began to joke on similar lines—­how he might be prejudiced at the polls!  It was absurd, totally absurd, to conceive Samuel Peel in any other relation than that of an uncle to a baby; yet the more absurd a slander the more eagerly it was believed, and a slander once started could never be overtaken.

What on earth was George Peel doing in Bursley with that baby?  Why had he not announced his arrival?  Where was the baby’s mother?  Where was their luggage?  Why, in the name of reason, had George vanished so swiftly into the Tiger, and what in the name of decency and sobriety was he doing in the Tiger such a prodigious time?

It occurred to him that possibly George had written to him and the letter had miscarried.

But in that case, where had they slept the previous night?  They could not have come down from London that morning; it was too early.

Little Georgie persevered in the production of yells that might have been heard as far as the Wesleyan Chapel, and certainly as far as the Conservative Club.

Then Mr Duncalf, the Town Clerk, went by, from his private office, towards the Town Hall, and saw the singular spectacle of the public man and the perambulator.  Mr Duncalf, too, was a bachelor.

“So you’ve come down to see ’em,” said Mr Duncalf, gruffly, pretending that the baby was not there.

“See whom?”

“Well, your niece and her husband, of course.”

“Where are they?” asked Mr Peel, without having; sufficiently considered the consequences of his question.

“Aren’t they in the Tiger?” said Mr Duncalf.  “They put up there yesterday afternoon, anyhow.  But naturally you know that.”

He departed, nodding.  The baby’s extraordinary noise incommoded him and seemed somehow to make him blush if he stood near it.

Mr Peel did not gasp.  It is at least two centuries since men gasped from astonishment.  Nevertheless, Mr Duncalf with those careless words had simply knocked the breath out of him.  Never, never would he have guessed, even in the wildest surmise, that Mary and her husband and child would sleep at the Tiger!  The thought unmanned him.  What!  A baby at the Tiger!