“No use to make a face at it, my dear boy,” he said. “He deserved it, and ought to have had it a twelvemonth ago.”
“Oh, yes, I dare say; but we all deserve more than we get.”
“Speak for yourself, Dicky, boy. I feel particularly good; nothing more on my conscience than a general feeling of laziness, and a stone too much weight.”
“But to be flogged!” cried Dick.
“Well, yes, it does sound bad, and of course it hurts; but Master Hanson has been bidding for it month after month.”
“But such a degrading punishment!”
“Ye-e-es,” drawled Wyatt; “but then all punishments are degrading. They are meant to be—so it seems to me.”
“It seems so hateful!”
“Of course: and the man flogged won’t like it. Don’t suppose in the good old times men liked to be cut short with the axe and block. The moral is, don’t do things which entail punishment.”
“Do you often flog men in this troop?”