"If I got the answer wrong, which I generally did, he would turn to my father and say, 'Henry, that boy's not being brought up right.' Then I got walloped because I wasn't being brought up right. Was this justice?"
H.M. gave the last sentiment a powerful oratorical flourish, and eyed his listener as though he expected an answer.
But he fell to brooding again.
"However, I am happy to say that life for George Byron Merrivale was not all ginger-pop either. At the age of eighteen months, when I first remember see in' him, I howled my head off. At the age of three I bit his finger almost through. At the age of five I poured hot treacle in his hat. But at the age of seven I fixed the bounder good and proper. I will now tell my readers how I did this."
An expression of secret glee stole over H.M.'s face.
"You're gettin' all this down, are you?" he inquired anxiously.
"I am."
"Every word of it?"
"Every word of it. But are you sure your memory goes back as far as the age of eighteen months?"
"Oh, I was somethin' of a prodigy," H.M. admitted, not without complacency, "but I was tellin' you about the measures I took for dealin' with my Uncle George."