“I try,” he said.
“Well, then,” said Sally, dragging Jimmy forward suddenly from his orange, “I want you to begin on him. He’s been so bad the last three days. He doesn’t mean to be, and I didn’t much mind him breaking my dolly, but now he’s pulled the blue china teapot off the table in the best room and smashed that, and we daren’t tell mammy, so we came out. I was minding him,” wept Sally, descending to tears at last, “but how can you mind anybody that won’t be minded?”
Jimmy turned very red and eyed his sister’s tears askance, but he planted his legs wide apart and said sturdily—
“I want to be bad.”
“You don’t love Sally, then?” said Andy.
Jimmy glared at him for a moment, then flew, all arms and legs, across the room and began to pommel such portions of his Vicar’s person as he could reach.
“I do love Sally. I do love Sally. Naughty Parson Andy!” he bellowed.
“Oh, Jimmy,” cried Sally, shocked out of her tears, and clasping her little thin hands distractedly. “You mustn’t call him that. Mammy said he would never let us come here any more if we did—never.”
That did reach Jimmy’s heart.
“No more chocs. No more noranges!” he wept. “I will be a good boy, I will.”