What's
got your precious mother?"
"Here's mother, and 'Dolphus too, father!" exclaimed Johnny, "I
think."
"You're right!" returned his father, listening. "Yes, that's the
footstep of my little woman."
The process of induction, by which Mr Tetterby had come to the
conclusion that his wife was a little woman, was his own secret.
She would have made two editions of himself, very easily.
Considered as an individual, she was rather remarkable for being
robust and portly; but considered with reference to her husband,
her dimensions became magnificent. Nor did they assume a less
imposing proportion, when studied with reference to the size of her
seven sons, who were but diminutive. In the case of Sally,
however, Mrs. Tetterby had asserted herself, at last; as nobody
knew better than the victim Johnny, who weighed and measured that
exacting idol every hour in the day.
Mrs. Tetterby, who had been marketing, and carried a basket, threw
back her bonnet and shawl, and sitting down, fatigued, commanded
Johnny to bring his sweet charge to her straightway, for a kiss.
Johnny having complied, and gone back to his stool, and again
crushed himself, Master Adolphus Tetterby, who had by this time
unwound his torso out of a prismatic comforter, apparently
interminable, requested the same favour.
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