He made one stride towards it, and thrust it aside, and behind it stood the boy, with a face of impudent innocence.
Anderson stood looking at him for a second.

The boy's eyes did not fall, but his expression changed.
"So you ran away from your father and hid from him ?" Anderson observed, with a subtle emphasis of scorn.

"So you are afraid ?" The boy's face flashed into red, his eyes blazed.
"You bet I ain't," he declared.
"Looks very much like it," said Anderson, coolly.
"You let me go," shouted the boy, and pushed rudely past Anderson and raced out of the store.

Anderson and the old clerk looked at each other across the great advertisement which had fallen face downward on the floor.
"Must have come in from the office whilst our back was turned, and slipped in behind that picture," said the clerk, slowly.
Anderson nodded.
"He is a queer feller," said the clerk, further.
"He certainly is," agreed Anderson.
"As queer as ever I seen.

Guess his father 'll give it to him when he gits home." "Well, he deserves it," replied Anderson, and added, in the silence of his mind, "and his father deserves it, too," and imagined vaguely to himself a chastening providence for the eternal good of the father even as the father might be for the eternal good of his son.