“Don’t want to be shpynkted!” screamed Toddie, in a tone which seemed an attempt at a musical duet by a saw-filer and an ungreased wagon-wheel.
“You’re not to be whipped,” continued Mrs. Burton, “but you must learn not to touch things without permission. I think that to go without your dinners would help you to remember that what you have done is naughty.”
“Izhe ’most ’tarved to deff,” exclaimed Toddie, bursting out crying. (N.B. Breakfast has been finished but a scant hour.)
“Then I will put you into an empty room, and keep you there until you are sure you can remember.”
Toddie shrieked as if enduring the thousand tortures of the Chinese executioner, and Budge looked as unhappy as if he were a young man in love and in the throes of reluctant poesy, but Mrs. Burton led them both to the attic, and into an empty room, placed chairs in two corners and a boy in each chair, and said:
“Don’t either of you move out of a chair. Just sit still and think how naughty you’ve been. In an hour or two I’ll come back, and see if you think you can be good boys here-after.”
“DON’T EITHER OF YOU MOVE OUT OF A CHAIR”.
As Mrs. Burton left the room, she was followed by a shriek that seemed to pierce the walls and be heard over half the earth. Turning hastily, she saw that Toddie, from whom it had proceeded, had neither fallen out of his chair, nor been seized by an epileptic fit, nor stung by some venomous insect; so she closed the door, locked it, softly placed a chair against it, sat down softly and listened. There was silence after the several minutes required by Toddie to weary of his crying, and then Mrs. Burton heard the following conversation:
“Tod?”