“You’re going there two hours from now, or you won’t be in Waterheel to-night.”
“I don’t want to be in Waterheel ever again.”
But Mr. Sumption was not having any nonsense. A large hairy paw like a gorilla’s shot out and swung Jerry by the collar on to the floor. “Now strip, you ungodly good-for-nothing, and I’ll send you out looking like a clergyman’s son.”
Jerry, groaning and moaning to himself, got into the bath, while Mr. Sumption took his dirty bundle of clothes down to Mrs. Hubble’s kitchen, where a long and noisy argument followed on her abilities to make bricks without straw, as she called his request to make his son look decent. He returned to the study to find Jerry less stiff in the joints, but growing every minute more defiant and miserable as the steaming water cleared the fogs of sleep from his brain.
“I’m not going back to camp. I’d die if I was to go there—with Ivy lost. It was bad enough when I had her to think of and all——But now ... I’d justabout break my heart.”
“Maybe after a time you can write to her again——”
“I can’t, I tell you. You don’t understand. I’ve lost her for ever. I frightened her—I made her scream.”
“You’re a beast,” said his father.
“Reckon I am, and reckon you’re treating me like one.”