"Gerald, give this paper to the cook."

"I can give it to the other slavey, can't I?"

"She'd be dressing."

"Well, there's Herbert."

"He's busy. Oh, you know where the kitchen is. Take it to the
cook."

He disappeared slowly behind the tree.

"What do you think of him?" she immediately asked. He murmured
civilly.

"Has he changed since he was a schoolboy?"

"In a way."

"Do tell me all about him. Why won't you?"

She might have seen a flash of horror pass over Rickie's face.
The horror disappeared, for, thank God, he was now a man, whom
civilization protects. But he and Gerald had met, as it were,
behind the scenes, before our decorous drama opens, and there the
elder boy had done things to him--absurd things, not worth
chronicling separately. An apple-pie bed is nothing; pinches,
kicks, boxed ears, twisted arms, pulled hair, ghosts at night,
inky books, befouled photographs, amount to very little by