“That’s very true,” said Thaddeus.  “I was speaking of it to the doctor up there, and asked him what he thought I’d better do.”

“And what did he say?” asked Mrs. Perkins.

“He stated his firm belief that there was nothing you or I could do to get him down to a basis, but thought Hagenbeck might accomplish something.”

“No doubt he thought that,” cried Bessie.  “No doubt everybody thought that, but it wasn’t entirely Teddy’s fault.  If there is anything in the world that is well calculated to demoralize an active-minded, able-bodied child, it is hotel life.  Teddy was egged on to all sorts of indiscretions by everybody in the hotel, from the bell-boys up.  If he’d stand on his head on the cashier’s desk, the cashier would laugh first, and then, to get rid of him, would suggest that he go into the dining-room and play with the headwaiter; and when he upset the contents of his bait-box in Mrs. Harkaway’s lap, she interfered when I scolded him, and said she liked it.  What can you do when people talk that way?”

“Get him to upset his bait-box in her lap again,” said Thaddeus.  “I think if he had been encouraged to do that as a regular thing, every morning for a week, she’d have changed her tune.”

“Well, it all goes to prove one thing,” said Mrs. Perkins, “and that is, Teddy needs more care than we can give him personally.  We are too lenient.  Whenever you start in to punish him it ends up with a game; when I do it, and he says something funny, as he always does, I have to laugh.”

“How about the ounce-of-prevention idea?” suggested Thaddeus.  “We’ve let him go without a nurse for a year now—­why can’t we employ a maid to look after him—­not to boss him, but to keep an eye on him—­to advise him, and, in case he declines to accept the advice, to communicate with us at once?  All he needs is directed occupation.  As he is at present, he directs his own occupation, with the result that the things he does are of an impossible sort.”

“That means another servant for me to manage,” sighed Mrs. Perkins.

“True; but a servant is easier to manage than Teddy.  You can discharge a servant if she becomes impossible.  We’ve got Teddy for keeps,” said Thaddeus.

“Very well—­so be it,” said Mrs. Perkins.  “You are right, I guess, about school.  He ought not to be forced, and I’d be worried about him all the time he was away, anyhow.”

So it was decided that Teddy should have a nurse, and for a day or two the subject was dropped.  Later on Mrs. Perkins reopened it.

“I’ve been thinking all day about Teddy’s nurse, Thaddeus,” she said, one evening after dinner.  “I think it would be nice if we got him a French nurse.  Then he could learn French without any forcing.”

“Good scheme,” said Thaddeus.  “I approve of that.  We might learn a little French from her ourselves, too.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Bessie and that point was decided.  The new nurse was to be French, and the happy parents drew beatific visions of the ease with which they should some day cope with Parisian hotel-keepers and others in that longed-for period when they should find themselves able, financially, to visit the French capital.