Not but that he liked to hear about the little fellow, of course; and not but that he was proud as Punch of him, too; but that he would like sometimes to hear Billy talk of something else.

The sweetest melody in the world, if dinned into one's ears day and night, became something to be fled from.
And Billy ought to talk of something else, too! Bertram, Jr., wonderful as he was, really was not the only thing in the world, or even the only baby; and other people--outsiders, their friends--had a right to expect that sometimes other matters might be considered--their own, for instance.

But Billy seemed to have forgotten this.

No matter whether the subject of conversation had to do with the latest novel or a trip to Europe, under Billy's guidance it invariably led straight to Baby's Jack-and-Jill book, or to a perambulator journey in the Public Garden.
If it had not been so serious, it would have been really funny the way all roads led straight to one goal.

He himself, when alone with Billy, had started the most unusual and foreign subjects, sometimes, just to see if there were not somewhere a little bypath that did not bring up in his own nursery.