It is said by many people who are supposed to "know things," that our life is frequently, if not always, influenced by the first impressions we ourselves receive of its value or worthlessness. Some folks, presuming to be wiser even than the wisest, go so far as to affirm that if you, while still an infant in long clothes, happen to take a disgust at the manner and customs of your parents, you will inevitably be disgusted at most events and persons throughout the remainder of your earthly pilgrimage. If any truth exists in such a statement, then "Boy" had excellent cause to be profoundly disappointed in his prospects at a very early outset of his career. He sat in what is sometimes called a "feeding-chair," wedged in by a bar which guarded him from falling forward or tumbling out upon the floor, and the said bar was provided with an ingenious piece of wood, which was partially hollowed out in such wise as to keep him firm by his fat waist, as well as to provide a resting-place for the plateful of bread-and-milk which he was enjoying as much as circumstances would permit him to enjoy anything. Every now and then he beat the plate solemnly with his spoon, as though improvising a barbaric melody on a new sort of tom-tom,—and lifting a pair of large, angelic blue eyes upwards, till their limpid light seemed to meet and mix with the gold-glint of his tangled curls, he murmured pathetically,— "Oh, Poo Sing! Does 'oo feels ill? Does 'oo feels bad? Oh, Poo Sing!" Now, "Poo Sing" was not a Japanese toy, or a doll, or a bird, or any innocent object of a kind to attract a child's fancy; "Poo Sing" was nothing but a Man, and a disreputable creature even at that "Poo Sing" was Boy's father, and "Poo Sing" was for the moment—to put it quite mildly—blind drunk. "Poo Sing" had taken his coat and waistcoat off, and had pulled out the ends of his shirt in a graceful white festoon all round the waistband of his trousers. "Poo Sing" had also apparently done some hard combing to his hair, for the bulk of it stood somewhat up on end, and a few grizzled and wiry locks strayed in disorderly fashion across his inflamed nose and puffy eyelids, this effect emphasising the already half-foolish, half-infuriated expression of his face. "Poo Sing" staggered to and fro, his heavy body scarcely seeming to belong to his uncertain legs, and between sundry attacks of hiccough, he trolled out scraps of song, now high, now low, sometimes in a quavering falsetto, sometimes in a threatening bass; while Boy listened to him wonderingly, and regarded his divers antics over the bar of the "feeding-chair" with serious compassion,—the dulcet murmur of, "Does 'oo feels bad? Poo Sing!" recurring at intervals between mouthfuls of bread-and-milk and the rhythmic beat of the spoon. They were a strangely assorted couple,—Boy and "Poo Sing," albeit they were father and son.
