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burst out of its beautiful charity clothes, decided that she must speak
to Caddles herself. He appeared in her presence with his hair hastily
wetted and smoothed by hand, breathless, and clinging to his hat brim as
though it was a life-belt, and he stumbled at the carpet edge out of
sheer distress of mind.
Lady Wondershoot liked bullying Caddles. Caddles was her ideal
lower-class person, dishonest, faithful, abject, industrious, and
inconceivably incapable of responsibility. She told him it was a serious
matter, the way his child was going on. "It's 'is appetite, my
ladyship," said Caddles, with a rising note.
"
Check 'im, my ladyship, you can't," said Caddles. "There 'e lies, my
ladyship, and kicks out 'e does, and 'owls, that distressin'. We 'aven't
the 'eart, my ladyship. If we 'ad--the neighbours would interfere...."
Lady Wondershoot consulted the parish doctor.
"
What I want to know," said Lady Wondershoot, "is it right this child
should have such an extraordinary quantity of milk?"
"
"
The proper allowance for a child of that age," said the parish doctor,
is a pint and a half to two pints in the twenty-four hours. I don't see
that you are called upon to provide more. If you do, it is your own
generosity. Of course we might try the legitimate quantity for a few
days. But the child, I must admit, seems for some reason to be
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