"No!" replied the child emphatically.

"Come."

"No!" still louder and more emphatic.

"Yes, come, dear."

"No, I won't!"

"Yes, but you must!" Mrs. Little said, taking hold of him.

At this, Tommy clung around the neck of Mr. Pelby, struggling and
kicking with all his might against the effort of his mother to
disengage him; who finally succeeded, and bore him, screaming at the
top of his voice, from the room.

"If that were my child," said Mr. Pelby, after they had left the
house, "I'd half kill him but what I'd make a better boy of him! I
never saw such an ill-behaved, graceless little rascal in my life!"

"Children are children, Mr. Pelby," quietly remarked his auditor,
Mr. Manly, who had half a dozen "little responsibilities" himself.

"Hard bargains at the best, I know. But then I have seen
good-behaved children; and, if parents would only take proper pains
with them, all might be trained to good behaviour and obedience. If
I had a child, it would act different, I know, from what that one
did this evening."