account.

'The schoolmaster must be supported, missus,' he said hastily.
'Discipline, you know. Boys have to be mastered.'

'To be sure; but you men, you don't know how. My Dick is the best boy in
the school, sometimes.'

'Sometimes, ma'am, yes.'

'Yes, sometimes, and would be always if you men had a pen'orth of ideas.
Boys should be driven sometimes and sometimes coaxed.'

'And how'd you coax him what played wag under the very school, fought
there, an' then broke out of the place like a burgerler?

'I know, I know--_that's bad; but it's been a fearful tryin' day, an'
allowances should be made.'

'Then, if he comes home you'll give him over to be--ah, dealt with?'

'Certainly, superintendent; I am not a fool, an' I want my boy taught.
But don't you men go chasm' those lads; they'll just enjoy it, an' you'll
do no good. You leave Dickie to me, an' I'll have him home here in two
shakes. Dickie's a high-spirited boy, an' full o' the wild fancies of
boys. He's done this sort o' thing before. Run away from home once to be
a sailor, an' slep' for two nights in a windy old tree not a hundred
yards from his own comfortable bed, imaginin' he was what he called on
the foretop somethin'. But I know well enough how to work on his
feelings.'