"What! you really think he has come on?" said my mother, joyfully.
"He does not care a button for botany now," said Mr. Squills.
"And he used to be so fond of music, dear boy!" observed my mother, with a sigh. "Good gracious, what noise is that?"
"Your son's pop-gun against the window," said my father. "It is lucky it is only the window; it would have made a less deafening noise, though, if it had been Mr. Squills's head, as it was yesterday morning."
"The left ear," observed Squills; "and a very sharp blow it was too.
Yet you are satisfied, Mr. Caxton?"
"Yes; I think the boy is now as great a blockhead as most boys of his age are," observed my father with great complacency.
"Dear me, Austin,—a great blockhead?"
"What else did he go to school for?" asked my father.
And observing a certain dismay in the face of his female audience, and a certain surprise in that of his male, he rose and stood on the hearth, with one hand in his waistcoat, as was his wont when about to philosophize in more detail than was usual to him.
"Mr. Squills," said he, "you have had great experience in families."