"What did you do to make him smite you?"
Silence.
"What was it?"
The stranger's voice was not so stern as it might have been, and the smile came back and dimpled the child's cheeks, as he answered,—"Pepper in ve dining-room fireplace."
"What made you do that, you sinner?"
"A boy told me. You ought to have heard vem sneeze, and ven papa fumped me."
"Much?"
The child eyed him distrustfully,
"What for do you want to know?"
"Oh, because—you see, I used to get thumped, myself, sometimes."