The conversation was in whispered French, and of exceeding bitterness
on one side. It is not necessary to repeat what was said. It is only
necessary to explain that the motherly looking person was the infant's
grandmother--in fact the mother of Madame Rousseau. From certain
disjointed explanatory scraps that fell from the motherly person's
lips it might have been divined that the baby awoke some time before
the arrival of the great philanthropist, and that grandmere deemed it
to be the part of wisdom to feed it thoroughly before submitting it
for inspection. No one takes to a howling brat, she protested.
Besides, what was she there for if not to look after the child of her
ungrateful, selfish daughter who had not the slightest feeling of--
But, all this time, Madame Rousseau was informing her mother that she
was a meddlesome, stupid old blunderer, and that the fat was in the
fire. She snatched the baby from the old lady's arms. The bottle
crashed to the tile floor and painted a section of it white, its
pristine hue. The infant was too surprised to cry. It maintained an
open-mouthed silence even as its mother whisked out of the bath-room
and brought the door to with a bang, leaving grandmere in the centre
of a pool of white, still whispering shrilly that even though a wise
father might by chance know his own son, a mother never could hope to
know her own daughter.

Messieurs Rouquin and Rousseau were talking loudly, rapidly and very
excitedly to each other--in French, of course--when Madame burst into
the room with the infant. Mr. and Mrs. Bingle, still staring at the
unoccupied bed, had nothing but blank bewilderment in their honest
faces.

"Ah!" shouted the two Frenchmen joyously.