"There's a big snowstorm coming up," ruminated the Master, as he scanned the grim weather-signs. "A blizzard, perhaps. I--I hope it won't delay any incoming steamers. I hope at least one of them will dock on schedule. It--"He turned back from his musings, aware for the first time that a right sprightly dialogue was going on. Cyril was demanding for the eighth time:
"WHY won't you tell me? Aw, I think you might! What's going to happen that's so nice, Friday?""Wait till Friday and see," laughed the Mistress.
"Shucks!" he snorted. "You might tell me, now. I don't want to wait and get s'prised. I want to know, NOW. Tell me!"Under her tolerant smile, the youngster's voice scaled to an impatient whine. He was beginning to grow red.
"Let it go at that!" ordained the Master. "Don't spoil your own fun, by trying to find out, beforehand. Be a good sportsman.""Fun!" snarled Cyril. "What's the fun of secrets? I want to know--""It's snowing," observed the Mistress, as a handful of flakes began to drift past the windows, tossed along on a puff of wind.
"I want to KNOW!" half-wept the child; angry at the change of subject, and noting that the Mistress was moving toward the next room, with Lad at her heels. "Come back and tell me!"He stamped after her to bar her way. Lad was between the irate Cyril and the Mistress. In babyish rage at the dog's placid presence in his path, he drew back one ungainly foot and kicked the astonished collie in the ribs.
At the outrage, Lad spun about, a growl in his throat. But he forbore to bite or even to show his teeth. The growl had been of indignant protest at such unheard-of treatment; not a menace.
Then the dog stalked haughtily to his cave, and lay down there.
But the human witnesses to the scene were less forbearing;--being only humans. The Mistress cried out, in sharp protest at the little brute's action. And the Master leaned forward, swinging Cyril clear of the ground. Holding the child firmly, but with no roughness, the Master steadied his own voice as best he could;and said:--
"This time you've not even bothered to wait till our backs were turned. So don't waste breath by crying and saying you didn't do it. You're not my child; so I have no right to punish you. And I'm not going to. But I want you to know you've just kicked something that's worth fifty of you.""You let me down!" Cyril snarled.
"Lad is too white and clean and square to hurt anything that can't hit back," continued the Master. "And you are not. That's the difference between you. One of the several million differences,--all of them in Lad's favor. When a child begins life by being cruel to dumb animals, it's a pretty bad sign for the way he's due to treat his fellow-humans in later years,--if ever any of them are at his mercy. For your own sake, learn to behave at least as decently as a dog. If--""You let me down, you big bully!" squalled Cyril, bellowing with impotent fury. "You let me down! I--""Certainly," assented the Master, lowering him to the floor. "Ididn't hurt you. I only held you so you couldn't run out of the room, before I'd finished speaking; as you did, the time I caught you putting red pepper on Lad's food. He--""You wouldn't dare touch me, if my folks were here, you big bully!" screeched the child, in a veritable mania of rage;jumping up and down and actually foaming at the mouth. "But I'll tell 'em on you! See if I don't! I'll tell 'em how you slung me around and said I was worsen a dirty dog like Lad. And Daddy'll lick you for it. See if he don't! He--"The Master could not choke back a laugh; though the poor Mistress looked horribly distressed at the maniac outburst, and strove soothingly to check it. She, like the Master, remembered now that Cyril's doting mother had spoken of the child's occasional fits of red wrath. But this was the first glimpse either of them had had of these. Hitherto, craft had served Cyril's turn better than fury.
At sound of the Master's unintentional laugh the unfortunate child went quite beside himself in his transport of rage.
"I won't stay in your nasty old house!" he shrieked. "I'm going to the very first house I can find. And I'm going to tell 'em how you hammered a little feller that hasn't any folks here to stick up for him. And I'll get 'em to take me in and send a tel'gram to Daddy and Mother to come save me. I--"To the astonishment of both his hearers, Cyril broke off chokingly in his yelled tirade; caught up a bibelot from the table, hurled it with all his puny force at Lad, the innocent cause of the fracas; and then rushed from the room and from the house.
The Mistress stared after him, dumfounded; his howls and the jarring slam of the house door echoing direfully in her ears. It was the Master who ended the instant's hush of amaze.
"Whenever I've heard a grown man say he wished he was a boy again," he mused, "I always set him down for a liar. But, for once in my life, I honestly wish I was a boy, once more. A boy one day younger and one inch shorter and one pound lighter than Cyril. I'd follow him out of doors, yonder, and give him the thrashing of his sweet young life. I'd--""Oh, do call him back!" begged the Mistress. "He'll catch his death of cold, and--""Why will he?" challenged the Master, without stirring. "For all his noble rage, I noticed he took thought to grab up his cap and his overcoat from the hall, as he wafted himself away. And he still had his arctics on, from this afternoon. He won't--""But suppose he should really go over to one of the neighbors,"urged the Mistress, "and tell such an awful story as he threatened to? Or suppose--""Not a chance!" the Master reassured her. "Now that the summer people are away, there isn't an occupied house within half a mile of here. And he's not going to trudge a half-mile through the snow, in this bitter cold, for the joy of telling lies. No, he's down at the stables or else he's sneaked in through the kitchen;the way he did that other time when he made a grandstand exit after I'd ventured to lecture him on his general rottenness.
