A Day of Punishment 



sorry, to have to make a public example of 

 you to-day, but it was at the express desire 

 of your friends, and I feel sure they would 

 not have asked me to do so without due 

 cause." I do not know if he expected me 

 to reply, but I did not and could not, and 

 after an awkward little pause he said, 

 *' There now, run along home, Harry, and 

 make up for it all to-morrow." 



I think I murmured "Thank you," at all 

 events I got out of the room in some 

 fashion. 



'' Poor little lad," I heard the motherly 

 Mrs. Blocker saying, as I went down the 

 passage, with my heart considerably softened 

 towards the master, but no whit towards 

 my home-folk. 



On former occasions of real or imagined 

 wrong, I had dreamed in the half-conscious 

 romancing of self-pity, that I would run 

 away for miles and miles ; I would go to 

 London and become that great and distin- 

 guished being I always vaguely meant to 

 be, and then some day my people should 

 hear of me again in my glory, and be sorry 

 they had been so cross and thought so 

 little of me, and then I would magnani- 

 mously forgive them and make them very 

 rich, and take them to pantomimes twice a 

 week. But to-night there was no play in 

 ^55 



