“Yes, yes,” cried Helen. “Keep still; there’s a good boy.”
“No, I ain’t,” he said, smiling down at her in the most ludicrous way. “I ain’t a good boy. I wish I was. Will he give it me very much?”
He tapped with his hand on the glass, as he pointed down at the doctor, who was still supporting the boy’s foot with the prop.
Helen did not reply, for the simple reason that she did not know what to say; and the boy, feeling bound, was making a fresh struggle to free himself, when Dan’l came in sight, round the end of the house, with a light ladder, and just behind him came Peter, with a board used when glass was being repaired.
“Here they come,” said Dexter, watching the approach eagerly. “I am glad. It’s beginning to hurt ever so.”
Dan’l laid the ladder against the vinery at some distance from the front, so that it should lie upon the roof at the same angle, and then, holding it steady, Peter, who was grinning largely, mounted with the board, which he placed across the rafters, so that he could kneel down, and, taking hold of Dexter, who clasped his hands about his neck, he bodily drew him out, and would have carried him down had the boy not preferred to get down by himself.
As he reached the foot of the ladder the doctor was standing ready for him, armed with the clothes-prop, which he held in his hand, as if it were a weapon intended for punishment.
The boy looked up in the stern face before him, and the doctor put on a tremendous frown.
“Please, sir, I’m very sorry, sir,” said Dexter.
“You young rascal!” began the doctor, seizing his arm.