"Why d'you let him lead you astray?" asked the father irritably, at the end.
Ern wagged his head slowly and began to scrape once more with his foot.
"Alf's artfuller nor me!" he said at last in a shamefaced way.
CHAPTER XIII
ALF MAKES A REMARK
Both boys turned up at Sunday-school next morning: Alf defiant, Ern abashed.
Mr. Pigott ignored the former, snubbed him brutally when occasion offered, and showed himself benignant to the prime sinner.
After chapel Mrs. Caspar spoke to him.
"I don't know what you think of my son, Mr. Pigott," she began.
"Which son?" asked the other in his bluff way.