"Is it breathing all right?" he says.

"If you can't hear it breathing," I says, "I'm afraid you're deaf."

You might have heard its breathing outside in the street. He listened,
and even he was satisfied.

"Thank Heaven!" he says, and down he plumped in the easy-chair by the
fireplace. "You know, I never thought of that," he goes on. "He's been
shut up in that basket for over an hour, and if by any chance he'd
managed to get his head entangled in the clothes--I'll never do such a
fool's trick again!"

"You're fond of it?" I says.

He looked round at me. "Fond of it," he repeats. "Why, I'm his father."
And then he begins to laugh again.

"Oh!" I says. "Then I presume I have the pleasure of addressing Mr.
Coster King?"

"Coster King?" he answers in surprise. "My name's Milberry."

I says: "The father of this child, according to the label inside the
cover, is Coster King out of Starlight, his mother being Jenny Deans out
of Darby the Devil."

He looks at me in a nervous fashion, and puts the chair between us. It
was evidently his turn to think as how I was mad. Satisfying himself, I