By and by Frank and his mother heard the clock striking an unusual number of times.
“What is the matter with the clock?” inquired Mrs. Frost.
“I don't know,” said Frank unsuspiciously.
“It has struck ten times, and it is only four o' clock.”
“I wonder if Pomp can have got at it,” said Frank, with a sudden thought.
He ran downstairs hastily.
Pomp heard him coming, and in his anxiety to escape detection, contrived to lose his balance and fall to the floor. As he fell, he struck the table, on which a pan of sour milk had been placed, and it was overturned, deluging poor Pomp with the unsavory fluid.
Pomp shrieked and kicked most energetically. His appearance, as he picked himself up, was ludicrous in the extreme. His sable face was plentifully besprinkled with clotted milk, giving him the appearance of a negro who is coming out white in spots. The floor was swimming in milk. Luckily the dictionary had fallen clear of it, and so escaped.
“Is this the way you study?” demanded Frank, as sternly as his sense of the ludicrous plight in which he found Pomp would permit.
For once Pomp's ready wit deserted him. He had nothing to say.