"That," said Jan, "is a mistake. It's no use to hate people."
"But if you feel like it ... I hate people if they cheat me."
"But who on earth would cheat you? What do you mean?"
"Once," said Tony, and by the monotonous, detached tone of his voice Jan knew he was going to talk about his father, "my Daddie asked me if I'd like to see smoke come out of his ears ... an' he said: 'Put your hand here on me and watch very careful.'" Tony pointed to Jan's chest. "I put my hand there and I watched and watched an' he hurt me with the end of his cigar. There's the mark!" He held out a grubby little hand, back uppermost, for Jan's inspection, and there, sure enough, was the little round white scar.
"And what did you do?" she asked.
"I bit him."
"Oh, Tony, how dreadful!"
"I shouldn't of minded so much if he'd really done it—the smoke out of his ears, I mean; but not one teeniest little puff came. I watched so careful ... He cheated me."
Jan said nothing. What could she say? Hot anger burned in her heart against Hugo. She could have bitten him herself.
"Peter was there," Tony went on, "and Peter said it served him right."