Zack, however, had not got at the razors; for they were all locked up, as Mr. Thorpe had declared. But he had, nevertheless, discovered in the dressing-room a means of perpetrating domestic mischief, which his father had never thought of providing against. Finding that kicking, screaming, stamping, sobbing, and knocking down chairs, were quite powerless as methods of enforcing his liberation, he suddenly suspended his proceedings; looked all round the room; observed the cock which supplied his father’s bath with water; and instantly resolved to flood the house. He had set the water going in the bath, had filled it to the brim, and was anxiously waiting, perched up on a chair, to see it overflow--when his mother unlocked the dressing-room door, and entered the room. “Oh, you naughty, wicked, shocking child!” cried Mrs. Thorpe, horrified at what she beheld, but instantly stopping the threatened deluge from motives of precaution connected with the drawing-room ceiling. “Oh, Zack! Zack! what will you do next? What _would_ your papa say if he heard of this? You wicked, wicked, wicked child, I’m ashamed to look at you!” And, in very truth, Zack offered at that moment a sufficiently disheartening spectacle for a mother’s eyes to dwell on. There stood the young imp, sturdy and upright in his chair, wriggling his shoulders in and out of his frock, and holding his hands behind him in unconscious imitation of the favorite action of Napoleon the Great. His light hair was all rumpled down over his forehead; his lips were swelled; his nose was red; and from his bright blue eyes Rebellion looked out frankly mischievous, amid a surrounding halo of dirt and tears, rubbed circular by his knuckles. After gazing on her son in mute despair for a minute or so, Mrs. Thorpe took the only course that was immediately open to her--or, in other words, took the child off the chair. “Have you learnt your lesson, you wicked boy?” she asked. “No, I havn’t,” answered Zack, resolutely. “Then come to the table with me: your papa’s waiting to hear you. Come here and learn your lesson directly,” said Mrs. Thorpe, leading the way to the table. “I won’t!” rejoined Zack, emphasizing the refusal by laying tight hold of the wet sides of the bath with both hands.