The boys had heard of the meeting and expected serious developments.

Mrs.Ben Steven called in the morning.

She was a tall heavily-framed woman, short-tempered, and astonishingly voluble in her wrath.

She had selected Richard Haddon as the vandal who had despoiled her cabbage-patch, and was seeking a just revenge.

Already she had called upon Mrs.Haddon and delivered a long, loud, and fierce public lecture to the startled little widow on the moral responsibilities of parents, and the need they have of faithfully and regularly thrashing their sons as a duty they owe to their neighbors.