The limit

THE LIMIT

He was a very small boy. Paddy was his dog, and Paddy was nearer to his heart than anything on earth. When Paddy met swift and hideous death on the turnpike road (на главной магистрали) his mother trembled to break the news. But it had to be, and when he came home from school she told him simply:

‘Paddy has been run over and killed.'

He took it very quietly; finished his dinner with appetite and spirits unimpaired. All day it was the same. But five minutes after he had gone up to bed there echoed through the house a shrill and sudden lamentation (книжное: плач, стенания). His mother rushed upstairs with solicitude and sympathy.

‘Nurse says,’ he sobbed, ‘that Paddy has been run over and killed.'

‘But, dear, I told you that at dinner, and you didn’t seem to trouble at all.'

‘No; but - but I didn’t know you said Paddy. I - I thought you said daddy!’