Though startled, Teddy lifted up his left hand.
“Why, I don’t see that anything’s the matter with it,” he replied, holding it out for examination.
“I mean the one you’re hiding under the table,” went on Aaron stonily.
“Oh, that one?” stammered Teddy. “Why, it’s scratched,” he added brightly, as he studied it with an expression of innocent surprise.
There was a dead silence. Teddy, not caring to look anywhere else, kept gazing at his hand, as though it were the most fascinating object in the world.
“Oh, Teddy!” moaned his mother.
And then Teddy knew that the game was up.
“Honestly, Mother,” he stammered, “I didn’t mean to–that is I meant to make the cat jump on the fly-paper, but I didn’t think he’d—”
Here was Uncle Aaron’s cue.
“Didn’t think!” he stormed. “Didn’t think! If you were my boy—” And here he launched into a tongue lashing that outdid all his previous efforts. It seemed to Teddy an age before he could escape from the table, carrying away with him the echo of Uncle Aaron’s final threat to have it out with his father when he came home that night.