2/8 It would take all the fingers of one hand, and the thumb of the other, to count us, O reader. A Frenchman might well hold up his hands in astonished horror at the insane prolificness--the foolhardy fertility--of British householders. We come very _improbably_ close together, except Tou Tou, who was an after-thought. There are no two of us, I am proud to say, exactly simultaneous, but we have come tumbling on each other's heels into the world in so hot a hurry that we evidently expect to find it a pleasant place when we get there. |