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"The subtraction of such a mass, or moles, supple and elastic as all flesh is, and fitting into the hard corners of the inert matter, such a subtraction, Mrs. Primmins, would leave a vacuum which no natural system, certainly no artificial organization, could sustain. There would be a regular dance of atoms, Mrs. Primmins; my books would fly here, there, on the floor, out of the window!
Nor can I wholly omit mention of poor Mrs. Primmins, who still calls me "Master Sisty," and is breaking her heart that I will not wear the new flannel waistcoats she had such pleasure in making, "Young gentlemen just growing up are so apt to go off in a galloping 'sumption!
Agreeably to these doctrines, strange in so learned a father, I thrived and flourished, and learned to spell, and make pot-hooks, under the joint care of my mother and Dame Primmins. This last was one of an old race fast dying away, the race of old, faithful servants; the race of old, tale-telling nurses.
"Nobody would know which was which. I should catch myself learning the Latin accidence, or playing at marbles. I should never know my own identity, and Mrs. Primmins would be giving me pap." My mother smiled; and putting her hand, which was a very pretty one, on my father's shoulder, and looking at him tenderly, she said: "There's no fear of mistaking you for any other, even your son, dearest.
Betimes the next day we hired a fly-coach for a chaise could never have held us and my father's books and jogged through a labyrinth of villanous lanes which no Marshal Wade had ever reformed from their primal chaos. But poor Mrs. Primmins!
"Poor dear woman," said my father, with great compassion. "So soon, too so rapidly," he resumed, in a tone of musing surprise. "Why, it is but the other day we were married!" "Bless my heart, sir," said Mrs. Primmins, much scandalized, "it is ten months and more." "Ten months!" said my father with a sigh.
Primmins, standing by and making a lap with her apron to receive the packages and anathemas simultaneously, bore with the mildness of an angel, lifting up her eyes to heaven and murmuring something about "poor old bones," though as for Mrs.
Primmins, who ought to know London so well, knew nothing about it, and declared it was turned topsy-turvy, and all the streets had changed names. The new silk umbrella, left for five minutes unguarded in the hall, had been exchanged for an old gingham with three holes in it.
Why, my wife is a precious woman! Well, keep her quiet. Heaven preserve her, and send me strength to support this blessing!" "But your honor will look at the baby? Come, sir!" and Mrs. Primmins laid hold of my father's sleeve coaxingly. "Look at it, to be sure," said my father, kindly; "look at it, certainly: it is but fair to poor Mrs. Caxton, after taking so much trouble, dear soul!"
Primmins pulled my father away, lifted a coverlid from a small cradle, and holding a candle within an inch of an undeveloped nose, cried emphatically, "There bless it!" "Of course, ma'am, I bless it," said my father, rather peevishly. "It is my duty to bless it Bless It! And this, then, is the way we come into the world! red, very red, blushing for all the follies we are destined to commit."
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