“I’m sorry I was rude to you, Faith,” said Hubert, with the grandly condescending air of a royal penitent, “but I was quite right all——”
“Chain up,” broke in Phil, “you weren’t asked to furnish any additional remarks about yourself. Now go on, Jack, with what you were saying.”
“And then you must finish your penance,” continued Jack, “by fetching Gaston, and we’ll give him a lesson in cricket.”
“And you’d better not try to frighten him over it, do you hear?” said Phil.
“I’d much raver be licked than have to play,” began Hubert.
“But small boys can’t always get what they want, even when it is a licking,” said Jack. “Now, off you go, or you shall have the frog and a whacking too.”
“It really would be kind,” said Fay, “to try to teach Gaston in a gentle way to be a little more like an English boy.”
“We can try, but I don’t think that we shall ever succeed,” said Phil.
“So you’ve brought him,” cried Jack, as, a few minutes later, Hubert came back with Gaston, whose eyes looked red with crying. “Now, look here, Gaston, do you or don’t you want to belong to us?”
“But I do, I do,” said the boy, eagerly.