‘That real fine one just underneath the scullery window,’ was the answer. ‘There’s his footmarks all over the bed, so I know it must have been him done it. Just you give him up to me, and I’ll teach him a lesson. It ain’t the first time he’ve done it, not by a long way.’
‘No, no—you shan’t!’ cried Emmeline, terrified for the dog, and grasping him more tightly, while Kitty burst into tears, and Punch himself barked more shrilly than ever.
‘Why, whatever’s the matter?’ called out Cook, suddenly appearing at the back-yard door.
Never had the sight of her round, good-natured face been so welcome. Emmeline gasped an ‘Oh!’ of relief, and Kitty almost flew up the path to meet her. ‘Cook,’ she implored, ‘You won’t let Mr. Brown beat Punch, will you?’
‘What do you want to beat the poor creature for?’ demanded Cook, who could always be depended on to take the part of any animal in trouble, more especially against Mr. Brown, with whom she was never very good friends. ‘He haven’t done no harm to nobody that I can see.’
‘Oh, in course not! Breaking my show chrysanth’um is no harm at all, is it?’ asked Mr. Brown, which he meant for crushing sarcasm.
‘Well, and how do you know it was him done it? That might have been the wind,’ retorted Cook, who privately suspected Master Micky, but would not have said so for the world.
‘There was his footmarks all over the bed,’ said Mr. Brown. ‘Oh, he done it sure enough, and he deserve a good beating sure enough.’
‘Well, you shan’t give him one,’ said Cook, defiantly, as she bent down and lifted Punch from Emmeline’s knee, ‘not without you want me to write and complain to Miss Bolton, who’d never let you beat him for a thing like that, which you know as well as I do. He’s going to the back-yard now, so he won’t do no more harm to your chrysanth’ums, and don’t you do no harm to him.’ And with that she marched off, carrying Punch, who was barking vehemently from his safe place of vantage in her arms.
‘Well, you’ll have to keep him chained up there then,’ called Mr. Brown after them as a parting shot, ‘for if I catch him about my garden you’ll know what he can expect.’