"But I thought you were helping Mason?"

"I was--that is--those alley micks--"

"That will do!" his father said angrily. "I've just been notified to have
you at the juvenile court next Friday to answer a charge of destroying
property. This is a nice scrape for my son to get into! And you didn't
have the grit to tell the truth. You lied to me! You'll go to bed, sir,
without your dinner!"

Mrs. Clarke's eyes were round with indignation, and she was on the point
of bursting into passionate protest when a warning glance from her
husband silenced her. With a sense of outraged maternity she flung a
protective arm about her son and swept him up the stairs.

"Don't make a scene, Mac darling!" she whispered. "Mother knows you
didn't do it. You go up to bed like a little gentleman, and I'll slip a
tray up to you and come up myself the minute dinner is over."

That night when the moon discovered Nance Molloy in Calvary Alley, it
also peeped through the window at Mac Clarke out at Hillcrest. Bathed,
combed, and comforted, he lay in a silk-draped bed while his mother sat
beside him fanning him. It would be pleasant to record that the prodigal
had confessed his sins and been forgiven. It would even be some comfort
to state that his guilty conscience was keeping him awake. Neither of
these facts, however, was true. Mac, lying on his back, watching the
square patch of moonlight on the floor, was planning darkest deeds of
vengeance on a certain dirty, tow-headed, bare-legged little girl, who
had twice got the better of him in the conflict of the day.