“Oh, Lucy,” he said, “I’m reading to Thomas.  Thomas is that.  Do you like him?  He is surprised at life, but quite pleased.  He that was Nothing from Eternity did little think such Joys to celebrate or see.  Yet thus it is.  He is extraordinarily happy about it all, but he can’t do anything yet, you know—­not speak or sit up or anything.  He can only make noises, and cry, and drink, and slither about in his bath like a piece of wet soap.  Wasn’t there a clergyman once who thought his baby ought to be baptised by immersion unless it was proved not well able to endure it, as it says in the rubric or somewhere, so he put it in a tub to try if it could endure it or not, and he let it loose by accident and couldn’t catch it again, it was so slippery, just like a horrid little fish, and its mother only came in and got hold of it just in time to prevent its being drowned?  So after that he felt he could honestly certify that the child couldn’t well endure immersion.  I’m getting better at catching Thomas, though.  He isn’t supposed to slip off my hand at all, but he kicks and slithers so I can’t hold him, and swims away and gets lost.  After tea will you come and help me wash him?  Rhoda’s out to tea; I’m so sorry.  But there’s tea, and Thomas and Algernon and me, and—­and rather thick bread and butter only, apparently; but I shall have jam now you’ve come.  First I must adjust Thomas’s drinking-bottle; he always likes a drink while we have our tea.  He’s two months old.  Is he good for that, do you think, or should he be a size larger?  But I rather like them small, don’t you?  They’re lighter so, for one thing.  Is he nice?  Do you like him?”

Lucy, kneeling by the crib, nodded.

“He’s very old and wise, Peter; very old and gay.  Look at his eyes.  He’s much—­oh very much—­older than you or me.  That’s as it should be.”

“He’ll rejuvenate with years, won’t he?” said Peter.  “At present he’s too old to laugh when I make jokes; he thinks them silly; but he’ll be sillier than anyone himself in about six months, I expect.  Now we’ll have tea.”

Lucy left Thomas and came to the tea-table and poured out tea for both of them.

“I’m trying to learn to do without three lumps,” said Peter, as Lucy put them in.  “I expect it’s extravagant to have three, really.  But then Rhoda and Thomas don’t take any, so it’s only the same as if we each had one, isn’t it.  Thomas shan’t be allowed more than one in each cup when he grows young enough to want any; Rhoda and I mean him to be a refined person.”

“I don’t think he will be,” said Lucy, looking thoughtfully into the future.  “I expect he’ll be as vulgar as you and me.  He’s awfully like you to look at, Peter.”

“So I am informed.  Well, I’m not vain, and I don’t claim to be an Adonis, like Denis.  Is Denis flourishing?  The birds were splendid; they came so thick and fast that I gathered it was being a remarkable season.  But as you only answered my numerous letters by one, and that apropos merely of Thomas’s arrival, I could only surmise and speculate on your doings.  I suppose you thought the grouse were instead of letters.”