Hugh John hung his head, and made a slight grimace at the pattern on the carpet, as a severer pang than any that had gone before assailed him.
"Now, look here, sir," said his father, shaking his finger at him in a solemnising manner, "If ever I catch you again in that orchard, I'll—I'll give you as sound a thrashing, sir, as ever you got in your life."
Hugh John rubbed his hand across his body just above the second lowest button of his jacket.
"Oh, father," he said plaintively, "I wish dreadfully that you had caught me before the last time I was in the orchard."
The treatment with pills and rhubarb which followed considerably retarded the operations of the army of Windy Standard. It was not the first time that the stomach of a commander-in-chief has had an appreciable effect on the conduct of a campaign.
