“There’s one for tardiness, one for impertinence, and one for—lying. You can’t fool me with a yarn about having to show a customer a department. I’ll let you go with demerits, this time, but don’t you ever lie to me again. I know too much about boys.”
Harry’s face turned from white to scarlet. He clenched his hands in an effort to control himself. It seemed to him that for the first time in his life he knew what hatred really meant. Now he understood, or thought he understood, Teddy’s rooted dislike for his former teacher, Miss Alton.
“Here, take your card and put it away.” Mr. Barton thrust Harry’s card into his hands and stalked off. The boy gazed gloomily at the three black marks that loomed in a sinister row on the bit of cardboard that spelled his future in the store, while, for the first time, deep in his soul, rankled and stung the bitterness of injustice.
[CHAPTER X]
BREAKERS AHEAD FOR HARRY
“Don’t feel so bad about it, Kiddy.” It was the sympathetic Miss Welch who addressed Harry. Seated at the exchange desk she had witnessed Mr. Barton’s harsh, unjust manner of dealing with Harry. Her pretty eyes still snapped with angry sympathy as she tried to comfort the boy, who looked ready to cry.
Harry clenched his hands hard, and manfully swallowed the lump that rose in his throat. He was a sturdy boy and not given to tears, but now his sense of outraged justice was so great that they were very near to falling. “I—I——” he stammered, then stopped, fighting for self-control.
“Don’t I know you wasn’t to blame?” soothed Miss Welch’s kindly voice. “Ain’t I seen him get after other boys besides you, when they hadn’t done a thing? Don’t tell me. You don’t have to. I guess I know old Smarty Barty.”