"Not Uncle Tom, were you going to say?" went on Tom Chance. "It was a pretence relationship, just a baby's whim to call me so. All right, Jack, so be it, but it is not the welcome I expected from my friend, Jack the Englishman," and he turned to go, but Jack sprang after him, seizing him by the hand.
"Don't go, please don't go, Uncle Tom. I did not mean it, really. I'm truly awf'ly glad to see you, but it's treating me like a baby to tell me to turn out my pockets."
"Look here, Jack," said Tom, turning upon him a face nearly as white as his own, "you know quite well why I wanted to see into your pocket. It's because I wanted to prove that you've lied to me. You were smoking, which only showed you to be a silly little ass. That could soon have been mended by a straight talk, but you told a lie to cover it, and that can't be mended. You'll carry the stain of that lie to your life's end. I'm deeply, bitterly, disappointed in you, and if you were my real nephew I'd beat you with the greatest pleasure in life."
Jack lifted sullen, unrepentant eyes.
"Beat me," he said, "beat me, and have done with it."
"No," said Tom. "Even that would not make things level. You are neither sorry nor ashamed."
He watched the knot climb into the boy's throat, he could almost see the fight between the evil and good spirit in his heart, and doubted which would conquer. He could but admire the boy's outward appearance, his splendid physique, his handsome head set so firmly on his broad shoulders, but the charm of the child that knows no evil was his no longer.
"Jack," said Tom again, "if you are giving me a sore heart, what will you give your father? How will you look him in the face if you can't speak the truth and shame the devil?"
Jack's arm went up as if to ward off a blow; he tried to speak but choked in the effort, and then he threw himself face forward on the grass, and was sobbing as if his heart would break, and Tom gave a long sigh of relief, for he knew the evil spirit had departed. He suffered Jack to cry for quite a long time. At last he bent over him, and touched him on the shoulder.
"Sit up, Jack. Suppose we have a talk, and see what's gone wrong with you?"