“Open your mouth,” said Mr. Dutton, not yet seeing the dart.
David had a good large useful mouth, and he opened it very suddenly to its extremest extent, putting out his tongue a little, which might or might not have been an accident. That unruly member was undoubtedly covered with splinters of common pen-holder, and nothing else at all.
“Sir-may-I-shut-it-again?” said David all in one breath, opening it, the moment he had spoken, to its widest.
Mr. Dutton’s eye fell on the inky dart.
“What is that?” he said.
David gave a prodigious gulp, and swallowed as much wood-fibre as was convenient.
“That, sir?” he said politely. “A paper dart, sir, inked.”
“Did you make it?” asked Dubs.
David’s face assumed an expression of horror.
“Sir, no, sir,” he said in a tone of wounded and innocent indignation.