"Apples _are_ fruit," said Dexter.

"But I did not tell you to pick my choice pippins and throw them across the river to every blackguard boy you see."

"But he hasn't got a beautiful garden like we have," protested Dexter.

"What has that got to do with it, sir?" cried the doctor angrily. "I don't grow fruit and keep gardeners on purpose to supply the wants of all the little rascals in the place."

"He asked me to get him some apples, sir."

"Asked you to get him some, indeed! Look here, sir; I've tried very hard to make you a decent boy by kindness, but it does no good. You were told not to a.s.sociate with that boy any more."

"Please, sir, I didn't," cried Dexter. "I didn't, indeed, sir."

"What? Why, I saw you talking to him, and giving him fruit."

"Please, sir, I couldn't help it. I didn't 'sociate with him; he would come and 'sociate with me."

"Bah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the doctor.

"And he said if I didn't give him some apples and pears he'd come and stand in front of the windows here and shout 'workus' as loud as he could."

"I shall have to send the police after him," said the doctor fiercely; "and as for you, sir, I've quite made up my mind what to do. Kind words are thrown away. I shall now purchase a cane--and use it."

"Oh, I say, don't," cried Dexter, giving himself a writhe, as he recalled sundry unpleasant interviews with Mr Sibery. "It does hurt so, you don't know; and makes black marks on you afterwards, just as if it had been dipped in ink."

Helen bent down over the work she had taken up.

"Don't?" said the doctor sharply. "Then what am I to do, sir? Words are of no use. I did hope that you were going to be a better and more tractable boy."

"Well, but ain't I?" said Dexter, looking puzzled, and rubbing his curly head.

"Better? No, sir; much worse."

Dexter rubbed his head again thoughtfully.

"I haven't torn my clothes this week, and I haven't been down on my knees; and I haven't been on the top of the wall, and I did want to ever so badly."

"No, Dexter; but you climbed right to the top of the big pear-tree,"

said Helen quickly; "and it was a terribly dangerous thing to do."

"Now you've begun at me!" said the boy in a lachrymose tone. "I'm afraid I'm a regular bad one, and you'd better send me back again."

The doctor looked at Helen, and she returned the glance with a very serious aspect, but there was a merry light in her eyes, as she saw her father's discomfiture.

He read her looks aright, and got up from his seat with an impatient e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"I'm going out, my dear," he said shortly.

"Are you going to get a cane!" cried Dexter excitedly. "I say, don't, and I will try so hard to do what you want."

"I was not going to buy a cane, sir," said the doctor, who was half-angry, half-amused by the boy's earnestness. "One of my walking-sticks would do very well when I give you a good sound thrashing. Here, Helen, my dear, you can speak to Dexter a bit. I will have another talk to him to-night."

The doctor left the room, and Dexter stood listening as his step was heard in the hall. Then the door closed, and Helen bent thoughtfully over her work, while the boy stood first on one foot, then on the other, watching her. The window was open, the sun shone, and the garden with its lawn and bright flowers looked wonderfully tempting, but duty and the disgrace he was in acted as two chains to hold the boy there.

"I say," he said at last.

"Yes, Dexter," said Helen, looking up at him sadly.

"Oh, I say, don't look at me like that," he cried.

"You force me to, Dexter," she said gravely.

"But ain't you going to talk to me!"

"If I talk to you, it will only be to scold you very severely."

Dexter sighed.

"Well," he said, after a pause, during which he had been gazing intently in the earnest eyes before him; "you've got to do it, so let's have it over. I was always glad when I had been punished at school."

"Glad, Dexter?"

"Yes, glad it was over. It was the worst part of it waiting to have your whack!"

"Do you want to oblige me, Dexter?" said Helen, wincing at the boy's words.

"Yes, of course I do. Want me to fetch something?"

"No. Once more I want you to promise to leave off some of those objectionable words."

"But it's of no use to promise," cried the boy, with a look of angry perplexity. "I always break my word."

"Then why do you!"

"I dunno," said Dexter. "There's something in me I think that makes me.

You tell me to be a good boy, and I say I will, and I always mean to be; but somehow I can't. I think it's because n.o.body likes me, because--because--because I came from there."

"Do I behave to you as if I did not like you?" said Helen reproachfully.

The boy was on his knees beside her in a moment, holding her hand against his cheek as he looked up at her with his lip working, and a dumb look of pitiful pleading in his eyes.

"I do not think I do, Dexter."

He shook his head, and tried to speak. Then, springing up suddenly, he ran out of the study, dashed upstairs, half-blind with the tears which he was fighting back, and then with his head down through the open door into his bedroom, when there was a violent collision, a shriek followed by a score more to succeed a terrific crash, and when in alarm Helen and Mrs Millet ran panting up, it was to find Dexter rubbing his head, and Maria seated in the middle of the boy's bedroom with the sherds of a broken toilet pail upon the floor, and an ewer lying upon its side, and the water soaking into the carpet.

"What is the matter?" cried Helen.

"I won't--I won't--I declare I won't put up with it no longer!" cried the maid in the intervals of sundry sobs and hysterical cries.