"Where are your skates, Charlie?"
"In my box in the play-room, sir."
"Where is your sled?"
"That is hanging up in the outer shed."
"Where is your fishing-line and your ball?"
"They are in the play-room."
"I wish you would get these and all your other playthings together before dinner. Peter (this was the head waiter) has collected your boots and shoes, and Sarah (the seamstress) has got your clothes together and packed your trunks. I have made out your accounts, and will be ready to send you home to your father by the afternoon train. You may help Bob also to collect his playthings; he has not done anything wrong, but he is so young I think your father would not like to have him here alone so far from home."
All this was said in a tone as utterly emotionless as I would have used if asking him whether he would be helped to beef or lamb at table.
Charlie was taken aback. If I had attempted to chastise him, if I had even used towards him the language of invective or reproach, he could have met the case. But here was an issue which he had never contemplated. After a moment of blank amazement, he said:
"Mr. H., I don't want to go home thus. It will grieve my father, and it will be a lasting stigma to me in Tompkinsville, where it is counted an honor to belong to this school. I know I have done wrong, but can't you inflict some other punishment? I will submit to anything rather than be sent home in this way. Put me in 'exile' and at the 'side-table,' for three days, or any time you please!"