Now Simon Amberley was slow to anger; indeed it may be doubted whether he had ever in all his life before been thoroughly roused; and perhaps for that very reason, the surging flood of indignation, so new to his experience, seemed to him like a call from heaven. All day he fed his wrath on the deeds of Scripture warriors, reading aloud from the sacred records, till Patsy Linders exclaimed, enraptured, that "the Bible was a durned good book, by Jiminy!"
Little Eliza stayed on, as she often did after the school was dispersed, sure that "her Simon," would find some new and agreeable entertainment for her.
"Did your father ever hit you before?" Amberley asked casually, as they strung a handful of painter's-brush into a garland, which it was thought might prove becoming to Simon Jr.'s complexion.
"Yes," said Eliza.
"More than once?"
"Yes."
"Where did he hit you last time?"
"Here." And Eliza pulled up the blue calico sleeve, and displayed a pretty bad bruise on the arm.
Simon paused a moment in his cross-examination.
"And you wish he was dead?" he asked at last, between his set teeth.