“Oh, I’ll be a good boy—least I’ll try to be. Shall you give me the cane if I ain’t?”
“I—er—I don’t quite know,” said the doctor. “I hope you will not require it.”
“Mr Sibery said I did, and he never knew a boy who wanted it worse, but it didn’t do me no good at all.”
“Well, never mind that now,” said the doctor. “You will have to be very good, and never want the cane. You must learn to be a young gentleman.”
“Young gentleman?” said Dexter, holding his head on one side like a bird. “One of them who wears black jackets, and turn-down collars, and tall hats, and plays at cricket all day? I shall like that.”
“Humph! Something else but play cricket, I hope,” said the doctor quietly. “Helen, my dear, I shall begin to make notes at once for my book, so you can take Dexter in hand, and try how he can read.”
The doctor brought out a pocket-book and pencil, and Helen, after a moment’s thought, went to a glass case, and took down an old gift-book presented to her when she was a little girl.
“Come here, Dexter,” she said, “and let me hear you read.”
The boy flushed with pleasure.
“Yes,” he said. “I should like to read to you. May I kneel down and have the book on your knees!”