The child looked up and fixed him with unwinking eyes. Kirk winced.
They were so exactly Ruth's eyes. That wide-open expression when
somebody, speaking suddenly to her, interrupted a train of thought, was
one of her hundred minor charms.
Bill had reproduced it to the life. He stared for a moment; then, as if
there had been some telepathy between them, said: "I want mummy."
Kirk laughed bitterly.
"You aren't the only one. I want mummy, too."
"Where is mummy?"
"I couldn't tell you exactly. At a luncheon-party somewhere."
"What's luncheon-party?"
"A sort of entertainment where everybody eats too much and talks all
the time without ever saying a thing that's worth hearing."
Bill considered this gravely.
"Why?"
"Because they like it, I suppose."
"Why do they like it?"
"Goodness knows."
"Does mummy like it?"
"I suppose so."
"Does mummy eat too much?"
"She doesn't. The others do."
"Why?"
William Bannister's thirst for knowledge was at this time perhaps his
most marked characteristic. No encyclopaedia could have coped with it.
Kirk was accustomed to do his best, cheerfully yielding up what little
information on general subjects he happened to possess, but he was like
Mrs. Partington sweeping back the Atlantic Ocean with her broom.
"Because they've been raised that way," he replied to the last
question.
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