Those proceedings
resulted in the performance of the following extraordinary tricks.
They first looked up the road, and down the road, and made sure that
they were alone. Then they all three faced about, and stared hard in
the direction of our house. Then they jabbered and disputed in their
own language, and looked at each other like men in doubt. Then they
all turned to their little English boy, as if they expected HIM to help
them. And then the chief Indian, who spoke English, said to the boy,
"Hold out your hand."
On hearing those dreadful words, my daughter Penelope said she didn't
know what prevented her heart from flying straight out of her. I thought
privately that it might have been her stays. All I said, however,
was, "You make my flesh creep." (NOTA BENE: Women like these little
compliments.)
Well, when the Indian said, "Hold out your hand," the boy shrunk back,
and shook his head, and said he didn't like it. The Indian, thereupon,
asked him (not at all unkindly), whether he would like to be sent back
to London, and left where they had found him, sleeping in an empty
basket in a market--a hungry, ragged, and forsaken little boy.
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