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“There’s some truth in what you say, Pat.”

“And small grace in my saying it. Forgive me, John.”

That’s the way Uncle Patrick flares up and cools down, like a straw bonfire. But my father makes allowances for him; first, because he is an Irishman, and, secondly, because he’s a cripple.

* * * * *

I love my mother dearly, and I can do anything I like with her. I always could. When I was a baby, I would not go to sleep unless she walked about with me, so (though walking was bad for her) I got my own way, and had it afterwards.

With one exception. She would never tell me about my godfather. I asked once, and she was so distressed that I was glad to promise never to speak of him again. But I only thought of him the more, though all I knew about him was his portrait–such a fine fellow–and that he had the same swaggering, ridiculous name as mine.

How my father allowed me to be christened Bayard I cannot imagine. But I was rather proud of it at one time–in the days when I wore long curls, and was so accustomed to hearing myself called “a perfect picture,” and to having my little sayings quoted by my mother and her friends, that it made me miserable if grown-up people took the liberty of attending to anything but me. I remember wriggling myself off my mother’s knee when I wanted change, and how she gave me her watch to keep me quiet, and stroked my curls, and called me her fair-haired knight, and her little Bayard; though, remembering also, how lingeringly I used just not to do her bidding, ate the sugar when she wasn’t looking, tried to bawl myself into fits, kicked the nurse-girl’s shins, and dared not go upstairs by myself after dark–I must confess that a young chimpanzee would have as good claims as I had to represent that model of self-conquest and true chivalry, “the Knight without fear and without reproach.”

However, the vanity of it did not last long. I wonder if that grand-faced godfather of mine suffered as I suffered when he went to school and said his name was Bayard? I owe a day in harvest to the young wag who turned it into Backyard. I gave in my name as Backyard to every subsequent inquirer, and Backyard I modestly remained.

CHAPTER II.

“The lady with the gay macaw.”

LONGFELLOW.

My sisters are much like other fellows’ sisters, excepting Lettice. That child is like no one but herself.

I used to tease the other girls for fun, but I teased Lettice on principle–to knock the nonsense out of her. She was only eight, and very small, but, from the top row of her tight little curls to the rosettes on her best shoes, she seemed to me a mass of affectation.

Strangers always liked Lettice. I believe she was born with a company voice in her mouth; and she would flit like a butterfly from one grown-up person to another, chit-chattering, whilst some of us stood pounding our knuckles in our pockets, and tying our legs into knots, as we wished the drawing-room carpet would open and let us through into the cellar to play at catacombs.

That was how Cocky came. Lettice’s airs and graces bewitched the old lady who called in the yellow chariot, and was so like a cockatoo herself–a cockatoo in a citron velvet bonnet, with a bird of Paradise feather. When that old lady put up her eye-glass, she would have frightened a yard-dog; but Lettice stood on tip-toes and stroked the feather, saying, “What a love-e-ly bird!” And next day came Cocky–perch and all complete–for the little girl who loves birds. Lettice was proud of Cocky, but Edward really loved him, and took trouble with him.