“Blest if I know,” he pondered. “The young rascal has been in a lot of scrapes, but this is the limit. I don’t wonder that Aaron feels irritable. Of course, he rubs it in a little too much, but you’ll have to admit, my dear, that he has a good deal of justice on his side. It was a mighty reckless thing for Teddy to do.
“I wonder,” he went on thoughtfully, “if perhaps we haven’t been a bit too lax in our discipline, Agnes. Too much of the ‘velvet glove’ and too little of the ‘iron hand,’ eh? What do you think?”
“Perhaps–a little,” she assented dubiously. Then, defensively, she added: “But, after all, where do you find better boys anywhere than ours? Fred scarcely gives us a particle of trouble, and as for Teddy”–here she floundered a little–“of course, he gets into mischief at times, but he has a good heart and he’s just the dearest boy,” she ended, in a burst of maternal affection.
“How about that boarding school idea?” suggested Mr. Rushton.
“I don’t like it at all,” said Mrs. Rushton. “I simply can’t bear to think of our boys a hundred miles away from home. I’d be worrying all the time for fear that something had happened to them or was going to happen. And think how quiet the house would be with them out of it.”
“I know,” agreed her husband, “I’d feel a good deal that way myself. Still, if it’s for the boys’ good—”
But here they were interrupted by a commotion on the stairs, and as they rose to their feet, Aaron came bouncing into the room. His coat and vest and collar and tie were off, but he was too stirred up to bother about his appearance. He was in a state of great agitation.
“What’s the matter?” they asked in chorus.
“Matter enough,” snarled Aaron. “I was just getting ready for bed, when I thought of some papers in the breast pocket of my coat. I just thought I’d take a last look to make sure they were all right, but when I put my hand in the pocket, the papers weren’t there. What do you make of that now?” and he glared at them as though they had a guilty knowledge of the papers and had better hand them over forthwith.
“Papers!” exclaimed Mrs. Rushton, her heart sinking at this new complaint. “What papers were they?”