The Story Of Louie Part 9

"Here she is--give it to me--I'm going to read it myself----" she cried.

Burnett Minor always wanted to read it herself--"it" usually being one of the sublimer pa.s.sages from the current number of the "Pansy Library" or an especially choice one from an office-boys' periodical.

Louie smiled languidly now as the girl s.n.a.t.c.hed a booklet from Elwell's hand and gave tongue.

"I've punctured your back tyre, Causton, but Mac has some solution and we'll mend it after tea--and I'm always to do my hair like this, Harris says--do look at it, isn't it stunning?--and now--aha!"

(somebody had made a grab for her book). "Thought you'd got it, didn't you, Elwell? Now I'll read it first and then show her the picture, and that reminds me, Mac, you've never given me my 'Jack Sheppard' back that I lent you----"

Louie reached for a chair. She yawned again.

"Do give me a cup of tea, somebody. I hope the watering's all done, for I'm not going to do any. What's the child got now? If it's 'Maria Martin' or 'Irene Iddesleigh,' I think I know them by heart."

The child herself answered her question. She jumped on a chair and extended an arm for silence.

"Ready?" she cried. "Now!"

"'THE LIFE AND BATTLES OF BUCK CAUSTON,'"

she declaimed in her most ringing voice,

"'_Being the Full Story and Only Authorised Life of this Famous Pugilist_'--

("Causton's uncle, don't forget, girls)--

"'_Revised by Himself and now Published for the First Time--including his Historic Encounter with the Great Piker Betteridge_'--

("Piker Betteridge--'Piker'--isn't it lovely?)

"'_Entered at Stationers' Hall and All Rights Reserved_

"'PRICE ONE PENNY'"

B. Minor drew out every syllable of the linked sweetness, and concluded;

"And lo and behold--on the cover--Buck himself--Uncle Buck, Causton--you needn't say he isn't--as large as life and twice as beautiful--there!"

She held up the booklet in triumph.

But she drew it back again, bubbling with enjoyment. "Wait till I find _the_ gem--the one about Piker," she cried.

Her fingers fluttered rapidly through the precious pennyworth in search of the "gem."

Louie's cup of tea had been at her lips, but not a drop spilt as she put it down again. If her colour changed at all it was only as that other pale fighter's had done whose story, Price One Penny, the unconscious Burnett Minor was rapturously searching.

"Here it is!" cried B. Minor, peremptorily extending her hand again.

"Listen, everybody!--

"'_But the redoubtable Buck refused to allow the wiper to be skied. He recked nothing of his bunged optic and the claret that flowed from his beezer. Game as a buck-ant he advanced for the twenty-eighth round. The Piker, whose bellows were touched_----'"

But Louie had risen and walked to the child. She held out her hand.

"Let me look," she said.

B. Minor gave her a suspicious look, as if she feared she might be reft of her treasure. "You will give it me back?"

"Oh yes."

Louie took the book.

She supposed she was awake now, but somehow a curious air of unreality enveiled whatever it was that was happening. She looked at the cover of the "Life" in her hand. The most execrable of woodcuts could hardly disguise what she saw. Traditionally posed, nude above the waist, and clad below only in tights and fighting-shoes--formidably watchful, lightly poised for the blow--in appearance at any rate he was a man and superb. But really he had been cruel, faithless, divorced.

As if she had pa.s.sed merely from one state of half-wakefulness to another, she did not think of the bomb she was about to drop among the girls. She only wanted to look, and to look, and to look again at this man, who was her father.

"Isn't it just Causton's mouth and chin?" she barely heard Burnett Minor bubbling. "But I can't say she has Uncle Buck's beezer----"

Slowly Louie handed the "Life and Battles" back. At any rate she had now seen him, if only in a wretched woodcut. She looked quietly about her.

"That's my father," she said, perhaps a shade distinctly and loudly.

Then she looked about her again.

Burnett Minor jumped down from her chair. Her eyes shone flattery on Louie. The very audacity of such a lie compelled her admiration.

"O-o-oh--_what_ a whopper!" she cried. Louie turned her eyes to Burnett Minor.

"You said uncle. You weren't quite right. That's my father," she said again.

Burnett Minor's life was full of miracles. A miracle more or less made no difference. Her eyes sparkled. She alone of the girls believed.

"Not really?" she gasped.

Louie nodded.

"Qu'est c'qu'elle dit?" Pigou cried excitedly, somewhere at the back.

"Pooh, she didn't--she only nodded--nodding isn't a lie," a casuist scoffed.

"Stupid, don't you see she's joking?"

But Burnett Minor was watching Louie--only to be quite sure.

"Honour?" she cried. "Spit your death?"

"Honour."

"How splen-_diferous_! And you never told us!"

But Burnett Major had already looked at her sister. She was shocked into using her Christian name. "_Genista!_" she reproved her.

"Let me look again," said Louie.