“Only—”
“Yes or no, that’s what I want to know.”
“Yes, but—”
“That will do. Now I understand why you were so pleased with the job. It’s a profitable thing to help a friend sometimes. Tempest will be amused when he hears.”
“Oh, I say, don’t—really I didn’t fancy—”
“That will do, I say. Cut—do you hear? I only wanted to know whether I was right or not in what I told Tempest.”
“Oh, but—” pleaded I, with a groan of misery.
“If you don’t cut I’ll lick you for disobedience.”
This, after all my good resolutions and hopes that all was squared and that before long Tempest would believe in me again!
I slunk away in despair, and curled myself up in my bed that night, the most miserable boy in Low Heath.