He snapped the ends, and tucked his needles in."
John Masefield.
After a sleepless night, and after the protracted toilet of the old and feeble, Lady Louisa tackled her task with unabated determination. She dictated a telegram to her lawyer, sent out the nurse for a walk, and desired Janey to bring Harry to her.
Harry, who was toiling over his arithmetic under the cedar, with the help of a tutor from Riebenbridge and a box of counters, obeyed with alacrity. He looked a very beaming creature, with "fresh morning face," as he came into his mother's room.
"Good morning, mamma."
"Good morning, my son."
The terrible ruler looked benign. She nodded and smiled at him. He did not feel as cowed as usual.
"You can go away, Janey, and you needn't come back till I ring."
"And now tell me all about the performing dogs," said the terrible ruler in the bed, when Janey had left the room.
Harry saw that she was really interested, and he gave her an exact account, interrupted by the bubbling up of his own laughter, of a dog which had been dressed up as a man in a red coat, with a cocked hat and a gun. He could hardly tell her for laughing. The dread personage laughed too, and said, "Capital! Capital!" And he showed her one of the tricks, which consisted of sitting up on your hind legs with a pipe in your mouth. He imitated exactly how the dog had sat, which in a man was perhaps not quite so mirth-provoking as in a dog. Nevertheless, the dread personage laughed again.