“I haven’t been loitering. I’ve been looking for my shoe.”
“Contradict me, will you, Arthur Wellington?” said Caleb softly. “Show me your other shoe. Come nearer, Arthur. Nearer. Take it off and give it to me.”
The boy approached, breathing faster; but he still hesitated to take off the shoe.
“Don’t keep me waiting, Arthur,” Caleb said. “You’ve kept me waiting long enough this lovely summer morning. Give me the shoe.”
Arthur did as he was told.
“Don’t go away, Arthur Wellington. I’m talking to you for your good. This lovely summer morning, I said. Perhaps you didn’t hear me? Eh? Perhaps you’re deaf? Deaf, are you, you workhouse brat?”
Caleb gripped the boy’s puny shoulder and banged him several times on the head with the shoe.
“Perhaps you won’t be so deaf when I’ve knocked some of the deafness out of you,” he growled. “Blubbering now, eh, you miserable little bastard? Look up, will you! Look up, I say! Oh, very well, look down,” and Caleb pushed the boy’s head between his own legs and thrashed him with the first weapon that came to hand, which was a bundle of rocket-sticks.
“Button yourself up, Arthur Wellington,” said Caleb, when he had finished with him and flung him to the floor where he lay writhing and shrieking and unbraced. “If I were you, Arthur Wellington, I’d be ashamed to make such an exhibition of myself in front of girls. That’s enough! Stop that blubbering. Do you hear? Stop it, and get to work. Stop it, will you, Arthur Wellington, unless you want another thrashing twice as bad.”
One of the apprentices was placing the stars on the fender to dry them before the fire which Caleb had lighted to make himself the tea.