What a pity that such a treat should
come to a little stupid thing that does nothing but sputter and crow
instead of to us! Such a waste of pleasure." They had never heard of
"the irony of fate," but in their youthful manner they felt it then.
So St. George Mortimer Brandon was borne off to the _Curlew_, and there,
indifferent to the glory of sunsets, or the splendour of bays and
harbours, he occupied his time in cutting several teeth, in learning to
seize everything that came near him, and in finding out towards the end
of the time how to throw or drop his toys overboard. He was even
observed on a calm day to watch these waifs as they floated off, and was
confidently believed to recognise them as his own property, while in
such language as he knew, which was not syllabic, he talked and scolded
at them, as if, in spite of facts, he meant to charge them with being
down there entirely through their own perversity.
There is nothing so unreasonable as infancy, excepting the maturer
stages of life.
His parents thought all this deeply interesting.
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