"Yes, father. I have a letter for you from Mr. Parlow. He said that I was
to tell you that I have done my sums very badly this week and that I gave
Willie Daffoll a bleeding nose on Wednesday--"

"Yes--have you any excuse for these things?"

"No, father."

"Very well. You may go up to your room. I will come up to you there."

"Yes, father."

He crossed the room very slowly, closed the door softly behind him, and
then climbed the dark stairs to his attic.


II

He went trembling up to his room, and the match-box shook in his hand as he
lit his candle. It was only the very worst beatings that happened in his
bedroom, his father's gloomy and solemn study serving as a background on
more unimportant occasions. He could only remember two other beatings in
the attics, and they had both been very bad ones. He closed his door and
then stood in the middle of the room; the little diamond-paned window was
open and the glittering of the myriad stars flung a light over his room and
shone on the little bracket of books above his bed (a Bible, an "Arabian
Nights," and tattered copies of "David Copperfield," "Vanity Fair,"
"Peregrine Pickle," "Tom Jones," and "Harry Lorrequer"), on the little
washing stand, a chest of drawers, a cane-bottomed chair, and the little
bed. There were no pictures on the walls because of the sloping roof, but