"But how did it happen!" said Mrs Millet.

"It's--sit's--sit's--sit's--sit's--sit's--his tricks again," sobbed Maria.

"Dexter!" cried Helen.

"Yes--es--Miss--es--ma'am," sobbed Maria. "I'd dide--I'd dide--I'd-- just half--half--half filled the war--war--war--ter--jug, and he ran-- ran--ran at me with his head--dead in the chest--and then--then--then-- then knocked me dud--dud--dud--down, and I'll go at once, I will-- there."

"Dexter," said Helen sternly; "was this some trick?"

"I don't know," said the boy sadly. "I s'pose so."

"But did you run at Maria and try to knock her down?"

"No," said Dexter. "I was going into my room in a hurry, and she was coming out."

"He did it o' purpose, Miss," cried Maria viciously.

"That will do, Maria," said Helen with dignity. "Mrs Millet, see that these broken pieces are removed. Dexter, come down to the drawing-room with me."

Dexter sighed and followed, feeling the while that after all the Union School was a happy place, and that he certainly was not happy here.

"It is very unfortunate that you should meet with such accidents, Dexter," said Helen, as soon as they were alone.

"Yes," he said piteously, "ain't it? I say--"

"Well, Dexter!"

"It's no good. I know what he wants to do. He said he wanted to make a gentleman of me, but you can't do it, and I'd better be 'prenticed to a shoemaker, same as lots of boys have been."

Helen said nothing, but looked at the boy with a troubled gaze, as she wondered whether her father's plan was possible.

"You had better go out in the garden again, Dexter," she said after a time.

The trouble had been pa.s.sing off, and Dexter leaped up with alacrity; but as he reached the window he saw Dan'l crossing the lawn, and he stopped short, turned, and came back to sit down with a sigh.

"Well, Dexter," said Helen, "why don't you go?"

He gave her a pitiful look which went right to her heart, as he said slowly--

"No. I shan't go. I should only get into trouble again."

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE.

"I say," said Dexter, a few days later, as he followed Helen into the drawing-room. "What have I been doing now!"

"I hope nothing fresh, Dexter. Have you been in mischief!"

"I don't know," he said; "only I've been in the study, and there's a tall gent."

"Say gentleman, Dexter."

"Tall gentleman with a white handkerchief round his neck, and he has been asking me questions, and every time I answered him he sighed, and said, 'Dear me!'"

"Indeed!" said Helen, smiling. "What did he ask you?"

"If I knew Euclid; and when I said I didn't know him, he said, 'Oh dear me!' Then he asked me if I knew Algebra, and I said I didn't, and he shook his head at me and said, 'Dear me! dear me!' and that he would have to pull me up. I say, what have I done to be pulled up!"

"Don't you know that Euclid wrote a work on Geometry, and that Algebra is a study by which calculations are made!"

"No," said Dexter eagerly. "I thought they were two people. Then why did he say he would have to pull me up?"

"He meant that you were very much behind with, your studies, and that he would have to teach you and bring you forward."

"Oh, I see! And is he going to teach me?"

"Yes, Mr Limpney is your private tutor now; and he is coming every day, so I hope you will be very industrious, and try hard to learn."

"Oh yes, I'll try. Mr Limpney; I don't think he much liked me, though."

"Nonsense, Dexter; you should not think such things."

"All right. I won't then. It will be like going to school again, won't it?"

"Much pleasanter, I hope."

Time glided rapidly on after its usual fashion, and Dexter grew fast.

There was a long range of old stabling at the doctor's house, with extensive lofts. The first part was part.i.tioned off for a coachman's room, but this had not been in use for half a century, and the whole place was ruinous and decayed. Once upon a time some one with a love of horses must have lived there, for there were stalls for eight, and a coach-house as well, but the doctor only kept two horses, and they occupied a new stable built in front of the old.

The back part was one of Dexter's favourite hunting-grounds. Here he could be quite alone, and do pretty well as he liked. Peter the groom never noticed his goings-out and comings-in, and there was no one to find fault with him for being untidy.

Here then he had quite a little menagerie of his own. His pocket-money, as supplied by the doctor, afforded him means for buying any little thing he fancied, and hence he had in one of the lofts a couple of very ancient pigeons, which the man of whom he bought them declared to be extremely young; a thrush in a cage; two hedge-sparrows, which were supposed to be linnets, in another; two mice in an old cigar-box lined with tin; and a very attenuated rat, which had been caught by Peter in a trap, and which was allowed to live _minus_ one foreleg that had been cut short off close to the shoulder, but over which the skin had grown.

No one interfered with Dexter's pets, and in fact the old range of stabling was rarely visited, even by the gardeners, so that the place became not only the boy's favourite resort in his loneliness, but, so to speak, his little kingdom where he reigned over his pets.

There was plenty of room, especially in the lofts with their cross-beams and ties; and here, with his pets, as the only spectators, Dexter used to go daily to get rid of the vitality which often battled for exit in the confinement of the house. Half an hour here of the performance of so many natural gymnastic tricks seemed to tame him down--these tricks being much of a kind popular amongst caged monkeys, who often, for no apparent object, spring about and hang by hands or feet, often by their tail.

But he had one piece of enjoyment that would have driven a monkey mad with envy. He had discovered among the lumber a very large old-fashioned bottle-jack, and after hanging this from a hook and winding it up, one of his greatest pleasures was to hang from that jack, and roast till he grew giddy, when he varied the enjoyment by buckling on a strap, attaching himself with a hook from the waist, and then going through either a flying or swimming movement as he spun slowly round.

Then he had a rope-trick or two contrived by means of a long piece of knotted together clothes-line, doubled, and hung from the rafters to form a swing or trapeze.

Dexter had paid his customary morning visit to his pets, and carefully fed them according to his wont; his plan, a very regular one among boys, being to give them twice as much as was good for them one day, and a starving the next--a mode said to be good with pigs, and productive of streaky bacon, but bad for domestic pets. Then he had returned to the house to go through his lessons, and sent long-suffering Mr Limpney, BA, almost into despair by the little progress he had made, after which he had gone down the garden with the expectation of meeting Dan'l at some corner, but instead had come upon Peter, busy as usual with his broom.

"Yer needn't look," said the latter worthy; "he's gone out."