"Carrots," he said, "I must whip you for this. Do you know that I am ashamed to think you are my son? If you were a poor boy you might be put in prison for this."
Carrots looked too bewildered to understand. "In prison," he repeated. "Would the prison-man take me?"
"What does he mean?" said Captain Desart.
Floss, who had been waiting unobserved in her corner all this time, thought this a good opportunity for coming forward.
"He means the policeman," she said. "Oh, papa," she went on, running up to her little brother and throwing her arms round him, the tears streaming down her face, "oh, papa, poor little Carrots! he doesn't understand."
"Where did you come from?" said her father, gruffly but not unkindly, for Floss was rather a favourite of his. "What do you mean about his not understanding? Did you know about this business, Floss?"
"Oh no, papa," said Floss, her face flushing; "I'm too big not to understand."
"Of course you are," said Captain Desart; "and Carrots is big enough, too, to understand the very plain rule that he is not to touch what does not belong to him. He was told, too, that nurse had lost a half-sovereign, and he might then have owned to having taken it and given it back, and then things would not have looked so bad. Take him up to my dressing-room, Maurice, and leave him there till I come."
"May I go with him, papa?" said Floss very timidly.
"No," said her father, "you may not."