That sounds like whooping-cough," said I, as my two small boys stopped in the middle of a fight to choke simultaneously. 

The charwoman paused, leaning on her broom. 

"Of course we'll hope it ain't," said she, but as one having very little hope, "though if it is, you're in for it. When my two had it," she settled down to enjoy the subect, "you should have seen my Katie, lay on her back for a fortnigtit: she did, white as death end nearly choking every time the cough came…" 

My heart sank, but rose a little as exuberant noises from the garden proved the fight to have been continued after the briefest of intervals. The musical cry of "Milk-ohs" brought it to a sudden end and they arrived, coughing to greet the milkman. 

"Whooping-cough?" said he, and drew his face to the appropriate length. "Well, well," he said, “you have got a long job. They may have it lightly, put I expect you will have them coughing all winter. Till March, that is - it never goes till March, so they say." 

As it was now July, I returned to the kitchen somewhat alarmed, but I was also a little puzzled as to how the germs were able to identify the months so accurately. 

Both boys have always taken the greatest of interest in my backdoor callers, and as the baker arrived, they again presented themselves -- and coughed. He listened to the coughs with interest. 

"If that's whooping-cough," said he brightly,"I can tell you something as'll cure it; it's a funny thing, mind you, but my mother said it cured me in five days. An old gipsy woman it was who told her . ‘You catch a mouse,’ She said, ‘dress it like a young rabbit, and roast it. That'll cure it," she said so my mother did as she said and I ate it up, not knowing what it was, of course, and the cough went like magic, She said. You want to try it with thém." 

He jerked his head at the boys, and I felt thankful they were not listening, and were returning to the garden. Even from there, an occasional whoop came up to me, and the woman who sells flowers cocked her ear to listen. 

"Dear, dear," said she,"you've got a bad job there, my love.You don't know what complications can come after whoopy cough." So she told me, with a wealth of detail, leaning back against the wall and taking her time. As she slowly raised her basket at the close, she paused for one last word of advice. 

"Don't you bath ‘em, my love, while they have it on them. That's how they gets it on the chest, pewmonia, bronchitis and such. I've known ‘em die of it." She departed, shaking her head sadly, and as she did so, there emerged from the garden two black objects covered from head to foot in wet earth. 

"We were making an underground railway," said the larger and dirtier. "But the tunnel wouldn't stay up," said the smaller and wetter. With one tucked under each arm, I departed upstairs and, throwing my gauntlet in the face of “pewmonia, bronchitis and such", turned on the bath.