The boy's figure shriveled.
"No," he confessed frankly, "I'm afraid I'm not."
"Of course you're not," continued his mother with the same brutal truthfulness. "It isn't that you do not mean to be, sonny," added she kindly. "But your mind wanders off on all sorts of things instead of the thing you're doing. That is why you do not get on better in school. All your teachers say you are bright enough if you only had some concentration to back it up. What you can be thinking of all the time I cannot imagine; but certainly it isn't your lessons."
"I know," nodded Walter without resentment. "My mind does flop about like a kite. I think of everything but what I ought to. It's a rotten habit."
"Well, all I can say is you'd be an almighty poor one to look after a lot of valuable dogs," sniffed his mother.
"I'll bet I could do it if I set out to."
"But would you set out to—that is the question? Would you really put your entire attention on those dogs so that other people could drop them from their minds? That is what taking care means."
"I couldn't promise. I could only try."
"I should never dare to have you undertake it."
"That settles it, Ma," announced His Highness. "I've evidently got to prove to you that you are wrong. I'm going up to Crowninshields' this minute to tell Jerry he can count on me from July until October."