To-night I asked Mac about him.
"He's a dreamer," said Mac, "and he's lazy. I am always strapping him for inattention. He's not a manly boy, never plays games, always stands in a corner of the playground."
"Does he ever fight?" I asked.
"He's a great coward, but there's one queer thing about him; when any boy challenges him to fight he goes white about the gills but he always fights . . . and gets licked."
"Mac," I said, "will you do me a favour? Don't whack him again; it is the worst treatment you can give him. He is a poor wee chap, and he is badly in need of real help."
"All right," said the kindly Mac, "I'll try not to touch him, but he irritates me many a time."
* * * * *
I had Geordie for an hour this morning. He was taciturn at first, but later he talked freely. He is very much afraid of his father, and he weeps when his father scolds him. This makes the father angrier and he calls Geordie a lassie, a greetin' lassie. This jeer wounds the boy deeply. He is afraid in the dark. He told me that he was puzzled about one thing; when he goes for his milk at night he is never afraid on the outward journey, but when he leaves the dairy to come home he is always in terror. I asked him what he was afraid of and he told me that he always imagined that there was a man in a cheese-cutter cap waiting to murder him.
"What is a cheese-cutter?" I asked.
"It is a bonnet with a big snout, something like a railway porter's. My father's a porter and he has ane."