His mother said: "His father is out of all patience with these goings-on, and will not have any more of it.

Half the time when Nick is needed he is not to be found; then it turns out that he has been gadding around with you two.
His father gave him a flogging last night.

It always grieved me before, and many's the time I have begged him off and saved him, but this time he appealed to me in vain, for I was out of patience myself." "I wish you had saved him just this one time," I said, my voice trembling a little; "it would ease a pain in your heart to remember it some day." She was ironing at the time, and her back was partly toward me.

She turned about with a startled or wondering look in her face and said, "What do you mean by that ?" I was not prepared, and didn't know anything to say; so it was awkward, for she kept looking at me; but Seppi was alert and spoke up: "Why, of course it would be pleasant to remember, for the very reason we were out so late was that Nikolaus got to telling how good you are to him, and how he never got whipped when you were by to save him; and he was so full of it, and we were so full of the interest of it, that none of us noticed how late it was getting." "Did he say that?
Did he ?" and she put her apron to her eyes.
"You can ask Theodor--he will tell you the same." "It is a dear, good lad, my Nick," she said.

"I am sorry I let him get whipped; I will never do it again.