Now, strange to say, this novel arrangement was extremely agreeable to the deposed ruler.  Bob took a shameless delight in doing menial service; to fetch and to carry for all hands filled him with joy.  But once outside of the premises he reasserted himself, and his importance grew as gas expands; he swelled to the bursting-point, he strutted, he grinned, he was broadly tolerant, and more than once he startled total strangers by laughing hilariously at nothing.  When he could not talk he whistled in tune to the singing voices within him.  But it was seldom indeed that he could not talk, and before long his intimate friends began to avoid him like a plague.  It was his partner, Kurtz, who finally dubbed him “The Pestilence that talketh in darkness and the Destruction that wasteth our noondays.”

Scarcely less interested in the new baby was Campbell Pope.  Pope, in fact, was becoming interested in almost everything of late.  He was growing youthful, too, in a way that vaguely alarmed his acquaintances.  His cynicism was disappearing, his dramatic reviews began to assume a commendatory tone that all but destroyed their journalistic value.

When Lorelei had recovered sufficiently to receive visitors the two lovers appeared one afternoon laden with packages.

“We’ve been shopping for the baby,” Adoree explained, as she began to unload herself; and Pope announced enthusiastically that the experience had been the most exciting of an adventurous lifetime.  Both of them, it seemed, had given free rein to their extravagance, for to begin with there was a marvelous locomotive that ran on a circular track, slightly too large to fit any room in the apartment.  It was no ordinary tin toy; it had a bell that rang and a whistle that tooted and a queer little painted manikin inside the cab.  There were, moreover, a depot, a bridge, and a frowning mountain range pierced by a tunnel.  All in all, the outfit weighed perhaps sixty pounds and required the operating skill of a practical mechanic.

And it proved to be a dangerous plaything, too, for once it had been thoroughly wound up and set in motion it developed an unsuspected and terrifying energy.  Bob subdued it only after it had completed a speed trial down the hall, in the course of which it substantially damaged baseboard and plaster.

Pope’s taste ran to mechanical contrivances; among his contributions there were, in addition to this public nuisance, an automobile, a camera, a bowling-alley, and a set of small carpenter’s tools, the mere sight of which brought out a sweat of apprehension upon the baby’s father.  Adoree, on the other hand, had invested heavily in animals; her gifts included a roaring lion, a peacock with a lease-breaking voice, an elephant that walked, accompanied by strange, whirring, abdominal sounds, besides many other products of the toy-makers’ fancy.  There was a huge doll which Miss Deniorest had purchased because of its resemblance to herself and which was promptly christened