It is often said sententiously that the child is the father of the man.  In this case most of us should blush for our parentage.  It will be conceded at once (subject, of course, to special reservations in favor of individual brats) that the baby is the most detestable of created beings.  But its physical impotence to some extent neutralizes its moral baseness.  In the child the deviltries of the baby are partially curbed, but this loss is compensated for by superior bodily powers.  Now, the virtuous child—­if such a conception can be framed—­when representing papa would delight to dwell on the better side of the paternal character, the finer feelings, the flashes of genius, the sallies of wit, the little touches of tenderness and romance, and so forth.  Very likely; but the actual child does just the reverse of this.  Is there a trivial weakness, a venial shortcoming, a microscopic spot of imperfection anywhere?  The ruthless little imp has marked it for his own, and will infallibly reproduce it, certainly before your servants, and possibly before your friends.

“Now we’ll play at being in church,” quoth Master George in lordly wise to his little sisters.  “I’m papa.”  Whereupon he will twist himself into an unseemly tangle of legs and arms which is simply a barbarous travesty of the attitude of studied grace with which you drink in the sermon in the corner of your family pew.

“Master George, you mustn’t,” interposes the housemaid, in a tone of faint rebuke, adding, however, with a thrill of generous appreciation, “Law, ’ow funny the child is, and as like as like!” Applause is delicious to every actor, and under its stimulus your first-born essays a fresh flight.  Above the laughter of the nurses and the admiring shrieks of his sisters there rises a weird sound, as of a sucking pig in extremis.  Your son, my unfortunate friend, is attempting, with his childish treble pipes, to formulate a masculine snore.  This is a gross calumny.  You never—­stop!—­well, on one occasion perhaps—­but then there were extenuating circumstances.  Very likely; but the child has grasped the fact without the circumstances, and has framed his conclusion as a universal proposition.  It is a most improper induction, I admit; but logic, like some other things, is not to be looked for in children.

Next comes mamma’s turn.  Perhaps she has weakly yielded on some occasion to young hopeful’s entreaties that he might come down to the kitchen with her to order dinner.  By the perverse luck that waits on poor mortals, there happened on that very day to be a passage of arms between mistress and cook.  Rapidly forgotten by the principals, it has been carefully stored up in the memory of the witness, who will subsequently bestow an immense amount of misguided energy in teaching a young sister to reproduce, with appropriate gesture and intonation, “Cook, I desire that you will not speak to me in that way.  I am extremely displeased with you, and I shall acquaint your master with your conduct.”