"But, Mac dearest," pursued his mother anxiously as she tried to brush the dried mud out of his hair. "Were you the only boy who stayed to help Mason keep them out?"
Mac jerked his head away irritably.
"Oh! It wasn't that way, Mother. You see—"
"That's Mac all over," cried Mrs. Clarke. "He wouldn't claim any credit for the world. But look at the poor child's hands! Look at his eye! We must take some action at once. Can't we swear out a warrant or something against those hoodlums, and have them locked up?"
"But, Elise," suggested Mr. Clarke, quizzically, "haven't you and the bishop just been arguing that the State ought not to interfere with a child? That the family ties, the mother's guidance—"
"My dear Mr. Clarke," interrupted the bishop, "this, I assure you, is an exceptional case. These young desperados are destroying property; they are lawbreakers, many of them doubtless, incipient criminals. Mrs. Clarke is quite right; some action must be taken, has probably been taken already. The janitor had instructions to swear out a warrant against the next offender who in any way defaced the property belonging to the cathedral."
It was at this critical point that the telephone rang, and a maid appeared to say that Mr. Clarke was wanted. The bishop took advantage of the interruption to order his carriage and make his adieus.
"You may be assured," he said at parting, "that I shall not allow this matter to rest until the offenders are brought to justice. Good-by, good-by, my little man. Bear in mind, my dear Elise, that Mukden matter. Good-by."
"And now, you poor darling!" said Mrs. Clarke in a relieved tone, as she turned her undivided attention on her abused son, "you shall have a nice hot bath and a compress on the poor eye, and whatever you want for your dinner. You are as white as a sheet, and still trembling! You poor lamb!"
Mr. Clarke met them at the drawing-room door: