The thought of Baby Cecil was the heaviest pang I felt when I was
dissatisfied with the idea of running away from home. Baby Cecil was
the pet of the house. He had been born after my father's death, and
from the day he was born everybody conspired to make much of him.
Dandy, the Scotch terrier, would renounce a romping ramble with us to
keep watch over Baby Cecil when he was really a baby, and was only
carried for a dull airing in the nursemaid's arms. I can quite
understand Dandy's feelings; for if when one was just preparing for a
paperchase, or anything of that sort, Baby Cecil trotted up and,
flinging himself head first into one's arms, after his usual fashion,
cried, "Baby Cecil 'ants Charlie to tell him a long, long story--_so
much!_" it always ended in one's giving up the race or the scramble,
and devoting one's self as sedately as Dandy to his service. But I
consoled myself with the thought of how Baby Cecil would delight in
me, and what stories I should be able to tell him on my return.
The worst of running away now-a-days is that railways and telegrams
run faster. I was prepared for any emergency except that of being
found and brought home again.
Thinking of this brought to my mind one of Fred's tales of the
captain, about how he was pursued by bloodhounds and escaped by
getting into water.
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