Thus he spent the bright Saturdays, hiding his accouterments each
day in his shanty, washing the paint from his face in the brook, and
replacing the hated paper collar that the pride and poverty of his
family made a daily necessity, before returning home. He was a little
dreamer, but oh! what happy dreams. Whatever childish sorrow he found
at home he knew he could always come out here and forget and be happy
as a king--be a real King in a Kingdom wholly after his heart, and all
his very own.




XII

A Crisis


At school he was a model boy except in one respect--he had strange,
uncertain outbreaks of disrespect for his teachers. One day he amused
himself by covering the blackboard with ridiculous caricatures of the
principal, whose favourite he undoubtedly was. They were rather clever
and proportionately galling. The principal set about an elaborate plan
to discover who had done them. He assembled the whole school and began
cross-examining one wretched dunce, thinking him the culprit. The lad
denied it in a confused and guilty way; the principal was convinced of
his guilt, and reached for his rawhide, while the condemned set up a
howl. To the surprise of the assembly, Yan now spoke up, and in a tone
of weary impatience said:

"Oh, let him alone. I did it."