“Why?” I said wonderingly.
“Why? Because it was such a good un. I’ve tried to coax him out of it lots o’ times. It was as sharp as sharp, and he used to use it to cut off fingers and toes, and that sort of thing. He never would give it to me, because he said it was good for operating, and now that old Frenchee Frenchee will use it for toasting frogs over his nasty little stove.”
“Here, you boys, come up here,” said the doctor just then.
We crept up very unwillingly, for the lecture was evidently going to begin.
“I thought we’d tell you,” said the doctor in his grimmest fashion, “we’re going to find out a school where there are no holidays, and send you there.”
But they did not, for in due time we went back to Barnstaple, and I had the last of my education there.