A compound shriek of delight followed the suggestion, and both boys scrambled upstairs, leaving me a free man again.  I looked remorsefully at the tableful of books which I had brought to read, and had not looked at for a week.  Even now my remorse did not move me to open them—­I found myself instead attracted toward Tom’s library, and conning the titles of novels and volumes of poems.  My eye was caught by “Initial,”—­a love-story which I had always avoided because I had heard impressible young ladies rave about it; but now I picked it up and dropped into an easy chair.  Suddenly I heard Mike the coachman shouting:—­

“Go away from there, will ye?  Ah, ye little spalpeen, it’s good for ye that yer fahder don’t see ye perched up dhere.  Go way from dhat, or I’ll be tellin’ yer uncle.”

“Don’t care for nasty old uncle,” piped Toddie’s voice.

I laid down my book with a sigh, and went into the garden.  Mike saw me and shouted:—­

“Misther Burthon, will ye look dhere?  Did ye’s ever see the loike av dhat bye?”

Looking up at the play-room window, a long, narrow sort of loop-hole in a Gothic gable, I beheld my youngest nephew standing upright on the sill.

“Toddie, go in—­quick!” I shouted, hurrying under the window to catch him in case he fell outward.

“I tan’t,” squealed Toddie.

“Mike, run up-stairs and snatch him in; Toddie, go on, I tell you!”

“Tell you I tan’t doe in,” repeated Toddie.  “ZE bit bots ish ze whay-al, an’ I’ez Djonah, an’ ze whay-al’s froed me up, an’ I’ze dot to ’tay up here else ze whay-al ’ill fwallow me aden.”

“I won’t let him swallow you.  Get in now—­hurry,” said I.

“Will you give him a penny not to fwallow me no more?” queried Toddie.

“Yes—­a whole lot of pennies.”

“Aw wight.  Whay-al, don’t you fwallow me no more, an’ zen my Ocken Hawwy div you whole lots of pennies.  You must be weal dood whay-al now, an’ then I buys you some tandy wif your pennies, an’—­”

Just then two great hands seized Toddie’s frock in front, and he disappeared with a howl, while I, with the first feeling of faintness I had ever experienced, went in search of hammer, nails, and some strips of board, to nail on the outside of the window-frame.  But boards could not be found, so I went up to the play-room and began to knock a piece or two off the box which had done duty as whale.  A pitiful scream from Toddie caused me to stop.

“You’re hurtin’ my dee old whay-al; you’s brakin’ his ’tomach all open—­you’s a baddy man—­’Top hurtin’ my whay-al, ee—­ee—­ee,” cried my nephew.

“I’m not hurting him, Toddie,” said I; “I’m making his mouth bigger, so he can swallow you easier.”

A bright thought came into Toddie’s face and shone through his tears.  “Then he can fwallow Budgie too, an’ there’l be two Djonahs—­ha—­ha—­ha!  Make his mouf so big he can fwallow Mike, an’ zen mate it ‘ittle aden, so Mike tan’ det out; nashty old Mike!”