At the end of half an hour you heard my voice again; and my voice called out, 'Mrs. Drabble! here's another chopping boy for you; come and take him!'--and you came and took him larboard, didn't you?"
"Larboard, sir, I don't deny it," answered Mrs. Drabble.
"Better and better! 'Here is another chopping boy,' I said. 'Take him, ma'am, and make him comfortable in the cradle, along with number one.' And you took the larboard baby (otherwise Smallchild), and made him comfortable in the cradle along with the starboard baby (otherwise Heavysides), accordingly! Now what happened after that?"
"Don't ask me, sir!" exclaimed Mrs.. Drabble, losing her self-control, and wringing her hands desperately.
"Steady, ma'am! I'll put it to you as plain as print. Steady! and listen to me. Just as you had made the larboard baby comfortable I had occasion to send you into the starboard (or Heavysides) cabin to fetch something which I wanted in the larboard (or Smallchild) cabin; I kept you there a little while along with me; I left you and went into the Heavysides cabin, and called to you to bring me something I wanted out of the Smallchild cabin, but before you got half-way across the main cabin I said, 'No; stop where you are, and I'll come to you;' immediately after which Mrs. Smallchild alarmed you, and you came across to me of your own accord; and thereupon I stopped you in the main cabin, and said, Mrs. Drabble, your mind's getting confused; sit down and collect your scattered intellects;' and you sat down and tried to collect them--"
("And couldn't, sir," interposed Mrs. Drabble, parenthetically. "Oh, my head! my head!")
--"And tried to collect your scattered intellects, and couldn't?" continued the doctor. "And the consequence was, when I came out from the Smallchild cabin to see how you were getting on, I found you with the clothes-basket cradle hoisted up on the cabin table, staring down at the babies inside, with your mouth dropped open, and both your hands twisted in your hair? And when I said, 'Anything wrong with either of those two fine boys, Mrs. Drabble?' you caught me by the coat collar, and whispered in my right ear these words, 'Lord save us and help us, Mr. Jolly, I've confused the two babies in my mind, and I don't know which is which!'"
"And I don't know now!" cried Mrs. Drabble, hysterically. "Oh, my head! my head! I don't know now!"
"Captain Gillop and gentlemen," said Mr. Jolly, wheeling round and addressing his audience with the composure of sheer despair, "that is the Scrape--and, if you ever heard of a worse one, I'll trouble you to compose this miserable woman by mentioning it immediately."
Captain Gillop looked at Mr. Purling and Mr. Sims. Mr. Purling and Mr. Sims looked at Captain Gillop. They were all three thunderstruck--and no wonder.
"Can't you throw any light on it, Jolly?" inquired the captain, who was the first to recover himself.
"If you knew what I have had to do below you wouldn't ask me such a question as that," replied the doctor. "Remember that I have had the lives of two women and two children to answer for--remember that I have been cramped up in two small sleeping-cabins, with hardly room to turn round in, and just light enough from two miserable little lamps to see my hand before me; remember the professional difficulties of the situation, the ship rolling about under me all the while, and the stewardess to compose into the bargain; bear all that in mind, will you, and then tell me how much spare time I had on my hands for comparing two boys together inch by inch--two boys born at night, within half an hour of each other, on board a ship at sea. Ha, ha! I only wonder the mothers and the boys and the doctor are all five of them alive to tell the story!"
"No marks on one or other of them that happened to catch your eye?" asked Mr. Sims.
"They must have been strongish marks to catch my eye in the light I had to work by, and in the professional difficulties I had to grapple with," said the doctor. "I saw they were both straight, well formed children--and that's all I saw."
"Are their infant features sufficiently developed to indicate a family likeness?" inquired Mr. Purling. "Should you say they took after their fathers or their mothers?"
"Both of them have light eyes, and light hair--such as it is," replied Mr. Jolly, doggedly. "Judge for yourself."
"Mr. Smallchild has light eyes and light hair," remarked Mr. Sims.
"And Simon Heavysides has light eyes and light hair," rejoined Mr. Purling.
"I should recommend waking Mr. Smallchild, and sending for Heavysides, and letting the two fathers toss up for it," suggested Mr. Sims.
"The parental feeling is not to be trifled with in that heartless manner," retorted Mr. Purling. "I should recommend trying the Voice of Nature."
"What may that be, sir?" inquired Captain Gillop, with great curiosity.
"The maternal instinct," replied Mr. Purling. "The mother's intuitive knowledge of her own child."
"Ay, ay!" said the captain. "Well thought of. What do you say, Jolly, to the Voice of Nature?"
The doctor held up his hand impatiently. He was engaged in resuming the effort to rouse Mrs. Drabble's memory by a system of amateur cross-examination, with the unsatisfactory result of confusing her more helplessly than ever.
Could she put the cradle back, in her own mind, into its original position? No. Could she remember whether she laid the starboard baby (otherwise Heavysides) on the side of the cradle nearest the stern of the ship, or nearest the bows? No. Could she remember any better about the larboard baby (otherwise Smallchild)? No. Why did she move the cradle on to the cabin table, and so bewilder herself additionally, when she was puzzled already? Because it came over her, on a sudden, that she had forgotten, in the dreadful confusion of the time, which was which; and of course she wanted to look closer at them, and see; and she couldn't see; and to her dying day she should never forgive herself; and let them throw her overboard, for a miserable wretch, if they liked--and so on, till the persevering doctor was wearied out at last, and gave up Mrs.