According to the captain's deduction, Dunn should have acted in similar fashion.
But he didn't; that was the odd part of it.
For Malcolm, when he next called, in company with his mother, at the Warren apartment, was not in the least sulky.

Neither was he over effusive, which would have argued fear and a desire to conciliate.
Possibly there was a bit more respect in his greeting of the new guardian and a trifle less condescension, but not much.

He still hailed Captain Elisha as "Admiral," and was as mockingly careless as ever in his remarks concerning the latter's newness in the big city.

In fact, he was so little changed that the captain was perplexed.

A chap who could take a licking when he deserved it, and not hold malice, must have good in him, unless, of course, he was hiding the malice for a purpose.