“Pooh! pish! pooh! tchah!” ejaculated the doctor, at intervals. “He gave that young scoundrel a good thrashing, and quite right too. Don’t tell him I said so.”
The doctor had laid down his pen to speak, but he took it up again and began writing, but only to lay it aside once more.
“Dear me! dear me!” he muttered. “I don’t seem to get on with my book as I should like.”
He put down his pen again, rose, took a turn or two up and down the room, and then picked up the newspaper.
“Very awkward of that stupid fellow Limpney,” he said, as he began running down the advertisements.
“What did he say, papa, when you spoke to him?”
“Say? Lot of stuff about losing prestige with his other pupils. Was sure Lady Danby did not like him to be teaching a boy of Dexter’s class and her son. Confound his impudence! Must have a tutor for the boy of some kind.”
Helen glanced uneasily at her father, and then out into the garden.
“Plenty of schools; plenty of private tutors,” muttered the doctor scanning the advertisements. “Hah!”
“What is it, papa!”