‘Then, I expect that was a very long time ago,’ said the boy; ‘for I do not see how you can begin too early;’ and with this the conversation closed. Sophia, as may have been detected, could never have been predestined to attain to eminence as a disciplinarian, and Leonard’s tutors, like her own, proved about equally inefficient in managing him. One after another were surveyed by the boy, and judged wanting. One could not ride, another could not shoot, a third wore spectacles, and topped his drives with unique regularity; but one and all joined hands in this, that they were totally unable to make him learn except when he chose to learn, or to exercise the slightest discipline over him out of lesson hours, and very little in.
Sophia soon grew considerably exercised about the boy. She had begun to see that the atmosphere of the Palace of Amandos was not entirely wholesome. He was not disciplined in any way, which she considered the worst preparation for a lad who would one day be an autocratic Sovereign. She compared the escapades of her own youth with his, and had to confess that she, at any rate, had been a little in awe of her father. She had often revolted, but with an uneasy feeling that consequences might follow, and thus disobedience had its drawbacks. Leonard, on the other hand, disobeyed her whistling, with his tongue in his cheek, and to him disobedience never seemed to bring with it any drawbacks at all. By the time she saw him next she would have forgotten about the incident, or if she remembered it, and began a little homily, Leonard would shut his eyes, turn down the corners of his mouth, and, with an air inexpressibly comic, say, ‘Let us pray.’ Once she had instructed Mr. Lanthony, the tutor with the spectacles, not without much inward misgiving, to use the cane to Leonard next time punishment was necessary, and, such an occasion occurring within an hour of the edict, Leonard had thrown a copy of Magnall’s Questions at Mr. Lanthony’s face when he produced the cane with so much precision that his spectacles were dashed into a thousand fragments, and his eyes gushed out with involuntary water. His mother had not told the boy that the proposed caning was consonant to her orders, and Leonard came to her in much indignation.
‘Mother,’ he cried, ‘you couldn’t guess what has happened if you tried a hundred times: that old giglamps said he would cane me this morning—me!’ and he tapped his waistcoat.
‘I am convinced you deserved it,’ said his mother calmly.
‘And I am convinced that his spectacles will never be fit to see through again,’ retorted Leonard, angry at finding her so unsympathetic.
‘Leonard, what have you done?’ she said.
‘I threw Magnall’s Questions at him hard,’ he said; ‘and thus his spectacles are not worth anything now.’
‘You wicked boy!’ cried his mother. ‘It was I who told Mr. Lanthony to cane you. You are very naughty and mischievous, and you must go and beg Mr. Lanthony’s pardon, and take your caning like a man; and your pocket-money shall be stopped to pay for his spectacles.’
Down went the corners of Leonard’s mouth.
‘Oh, dear!’ he sighed; ‘let us pray; but get it over quick.’