"Why not limp, if it saved your foot?" inquired Matilda.
"You would, Pink, wouldn't you?"
"Why, yes; certainly I would."
"Well, you might," said Norton. "But did you ever read the story of the Spartan boy and the fox?"
"No."
"He stole a fox," said Norton, working away at the inside of his boot, which gave him some trouble.
"But you haven't stolen a fox."
"I should think not," said Norton. "The boy carried the fox home under his cloak; and it was not a tame fox, Pink, by any means, and did not like being .carried, I suppose; and it cut and bit and tore at the boy all the while, under his cloak; so that by the time he got the fox home, it had made an end of him."
"Why didn't he let the fox go?"
"Ah! why didn't he?" said Norton. "He was a boy, and he would have been ashamed."