“Take him out,” commanded the mistress.
Miss O’Brien, pleased at this opportunity of displaying her powers, entered, and squaring her shoulders, stood over the intruder in much the same way that Henry had seen barmen stand over Sam.
“Look here, now,” he said, turning pale; “you drop it. I don’t want to hurt you.”
He placed his pipe in his pocket, and rose to his feet as the gymnasium mistress caught him in her strong slender arms and raised him from the ground. Her grip was like steel, and a babel of admiring young voices broke upon his horrified ears as his captor marched easily with him down the garden, their progress marked by apples, which rolled out of his pockets and bounded along the ground.
“I shall kick you,” whispered Henry fiercely—ignoring the fact that both legs were jammed together—as he caught sight of the pale, bewildered little face of Gertrude U. F. Harcourt.
“Kick away,” said Miss O’Brien sweetly, and using him as a dumb-bell, threw in a gratuitous gymnastic display for the edification of her pupils.
“If you come here again, you naughty little boy,” said Miss Dimchurch, who was heading the procession behind, “I shall give you to a policeman. Open the gate, girls!”
The gate was open, and Henry, half dead with shame, was thrust into the road in full view of the cook, who had been sent out in search of him.
“Wot, ’Enery?” said the cook in unbelieving accents as he staggered back, aghast at the spectacle—“wotever ’ave you been a-doin’ of?”
“He’s been stealing my apples!” said Miss Dimchurch sternly. “If I catch him here again I shall cane him!”