‘Albert,’ she said after a while.
‘Yes, dear?’
‘What was it you were going to tell me last night when you came rushing up to the bedroom? You said you had an idea for the baby.’
Albert Taylor lowered the magazine on to his lap and gave her a long sly look.
‘Did I?’ he said.
‘Yes.’ She waited for him to go on, but he didn’t.
‘What’s the big joke?’ she asked. ‘Why are you grinning like that?’
‘It’s a joke all right,’ he said.
‘Tell it to me, dear.’
‘I’m not sure I ought to,’ he said. ‘You might call me a liar.’
She had seldom seen him looking so pleased with himself as he was now, and she smiled back at him, egging him on.
‘I’d just like to see your face when you hear it, Mabel, that’s all.’
‘Albert, what is all this?’
He paused, refusing to be hurried.
‘You do think the baby’s better, don’t you?’ he asked.
‘Of course I do.’
‘You agree with me that all of a sudden she’s feeding marvellously and looking one-hundred-per-cent different?’
‘I do, Albert, yes.’
‘That’s good,’ he said, the grin widening. ‘You see, it’s me that did it.’
‘Did what?’
‘I cured the baby.’
‘Yes, dear, I’m sure you did.’ Mrs Taylor went right on with her knitting.
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
‘Of course I believe you, Albert. I give you all the credit, every bit of it.’
‘Then how did I do it?’
‘Well,’ she said, pausing a moment to think. ‘I suppose it’s simply that you’re a brilliant feed-mixer. Ever since you started mixing the feeds she’s got better and better.’
‘You mean there’s some sort of an art in mixing the feeds?’
‘Apparently there is.’ She was knitting away and smiling quietly to herself, thinking how funny men were.
‘I’ll tell you a secret,’ he said. ‘You’re absolutely right. Although, mind you, it isn’t so much how you mix it that counts. It’s what you put in. You realize that, don’t you, Mabel?’
Mrs Taylor stopped knitting and looked up sharply at her husband. ‘Albert,’ she said, ‘don’t tell me you’ve been putting things into that child’s milk?’
He sat there grinning.
‘Well, have you or haven’t you?’
‘It’s possible,’ he said.
‘I don’t believe it.’
He had a strange fierce way of grinning that showed his teeth.
‘Albert,’ she said. ‘Stop playing with me like this.’
‘Yes, dear, all right.’
‘You haven’t really put anything into her milk, have you? Answer me properly, Albert. This could be serious with such a tiny baby.’
‘The answer is yes, Mabel.’
‘Albert Taylor! How could you?’
‘Now don’t get excited,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you all about it if you really want me to, but for heaven’s sake keep your hair on.’
‘It was beer!’ she cried. ‘I just know it was beer!’
‘Don’t be daft, Mabel, please.’
‘Then what was it?’
Albert laid his pipe down carefully on the table beside him and leaned back in his chair. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘did you ever by any chance happen to hear me mentioning something called royal jelly?’
‘I did not.’
‘It’s magic,’ he said. ‘Pure magic. And last night I suddenly got the idea that if I was to put some of this into the baby’s milk…’
‘How dare you!’
‘Now, Mabel, you don’t even know what it is yet.’
‘I don’t care what it is,’ she said. ‘You can’t go putting foreign bodies like that into a tiny baby’s milk. You must be mad.’
‘It’s perfectly harmless, Mabel, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. It comes from bees.’
‘I might have guessed that.’
‘And it’s so precious that practically no one can afford to take it. When they do, it’s only one little drop at a time.’
‘And how much did you give to our baby, might I ask?’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that’s the whole point. That’s where the difference lies. I reckon that our baby, just in the last four feeds, has already swallowed about fifty times as much royal jelly as anyone else in the world has ever swallowed before. How about that?’
‘Albert, stop pulling my leg.’
‘I swear it,’ he said proudly.