'I know what time you go here. Nine o'clock.'

As if to support my words, the door opened, and Mrs Attwell, the
matron, entered.

'I think it's time he came to bed, Mr Burns.'

'Just what I was saying, Mrs Attwell.'

'You're crazy,' observed the Little Nugget. 'Bed nothing!'

Mrs Attwell looked at me despairingly.

'I never saw such a boy!'

The whole machinery of the school was being held up by this legal
infant. Any vacillation now, and Authority would suffer a set-back
from which it would be hard put to it to recover. It seemed to me
a situation that called for action.

I bent down, scooped the Little Nugget out of his chair like an
oyster, and made for the door. Outside he screamed incessantly. He
kicked me in the stomach and then on the knee. He continued to
scream. He screamed all the way upstairs. He was screaming when we
reached his room.

* * * * *

Half an hour later I sat in the study, smoking thoughtfully.
Reports from the seat of war told of a sullen and probably only