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McCutcheon, George Barr, 1866-1928

"Mr. Bingle"

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.


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