“Now, Philip, tell your mother where you hid the carving knife,” she said invitingly. Philip made a break for the outer door. He was caught and reasoned with. Incidentally his naughtiness in leading the game was mentioned. His mother set her jaw and loosened her shawl.
“An’ that’s what ye did, ye bad boy? What did I say the last time I see ye at it? Dirty thrick! You come here to me, sir!”
Philip kicked violently and pinched the youngest assistant. Her lips assumed the set expression of the other woman’s. The light of generations of Philistine mothers kindled in her eye. As Philip struggled silently but wildly, the voice of Mrs. R. B. M. Smith, high and resonant, floated through the transom.
“And so we never strike a little child, Joseph, and you must never talk about it. His mother and Miss Ethel are going to talk with little Philip, and try to make him see——”
Philip ducked under his mother’s arm and almost gained the door. The youngest assistant caught him by his apron-string and towed him back. His mother looked around hastily, noticed a small door half open, and caught the youngest assistant’s eye.
“Cellar?” she inquired.
The youngest assistant nodded, and as his mother lifted Philip bodily and made for the little door, it was opened for her and closed after her by the only other person in the hall.
His mother carried Philip to the coal-heap, and upon it she sat and spanked her son—spanked him systematically, and after an ancient method upon which civilization has been able to make few if any improvements. She had never read that excellent work, “Child Culture, or
“It was opened for her and closed after her.”