"Sh-sh!"
He was confronted by the proprietor's wife. "What are you racing around here like a mule for—say? Don't you know you are wearing out the carpet? Why don't you go somewhere and sit down and behave like a human being? Think I bought this carpet to have it scuffed out this way? Stop raking your foot on the floor that way."
He held up his hands as if, in begging for forgiveness, he would kiss her. "Don't put your greasy hands on me. Go on, now, and don't rake your feet on this carpet. I don't know what mothers these days can be thinking about."
"Tommie," his mother called.
"Yessum."
"Come here."
"Oh, I don't know what to do with you," she said, when she had drawn him into the room. "What makes you so bad?"
"I dunno; but it must be the bad man."
"Yes, and he'll get you, too, if you don't behave yourself."
"And will he hurt me?"