Not for a moment had Mrs.Jennett relaxed her tender care of him, but the average canings of a public school--Dick fell under punishment about three times a month--filled him with contempt for her powers.

'She doesn't hurt,' he explained to Maisie, who urged him to rebellion, 'and she is kinder to you after she has whacked me.' Dick shambled through the days unkempt in body and savage in soul, as the smaller boys of the school learned to know, for when the spirit moved him he would hit them, cunningly and with science.

The same spirit made him more than once try to tease Maisie, but the girl refused to be made unhappy.

'We are both miserable as it is,' said she.

'What is the use of trying to make things worse?
Let's find things to do, and forget things.' The pistol was the outcome of that search.