As he spoke he drew a picklock from his pocket--his father was an ironmonger--deliberately opened the schoolroom door, slipped out, and locked it behind him. Then he came to one of the windows, and began making faces at me. But vengeance was nigher than he knew. A deeper shadow darkened my page, and when I looked up, there was Turkey towering over Mason, with his hand on his collar, and his whip lifted. The whip did not look formidable. Mason received the threat as a joke, and laughed in Turkey’s face. Perceiving, however, that Turkey looked dangerous, with a sudden wriggle, at which he was an adept, he broke free, and, trusting to his tried speed of foot, turned his head and made a grimace as he took to his heels. Before, however, he could widen the space between them sufficiently, Turkey’s whip came down upon him. With a howl of pain Peter doubled himself up, and Turkey fell upon him, and, heedless of his yells and cries, pommelled him severely. Although they were now at some distance, too great for the distinguishing of words, I could hear that Turkey mingled admonition with punishment. A little longer, and Peter crept past the window, a miserable mass of collapsed and unstrung impudence, his face bleared with crying, and his knuckles dug into his eyes. And this was the boy I had chosen for my leader! He had been false to me, I said to myself; and the noble Turkey, seeing his behaviour through the window, had watched to give him his deserts. My heart was full of gratitude. Once more Turkey drew near the window. What was my dismay and indignation to hear him utter the following words: “If you weren’t your father’s son, Ranald, and my own old friend, I would serve you just the same.” Wrath and pride arose in me at the idea of Turkey, who used to call himself my horse, behaving to me after this fashion; and, my evil ways having half made a sneak of me, I cried out: “I’ll tell my father, Turkey.” “I only wish you would, and then I should be no tell-tale if he asked me why, and I told him all about it. You young blackguard! You’re no gentleman! To sneak about the streets and hit girls with snowballs! I scorn you!” “You must have been watching, then, Turkey, and you had no business to do that,” I said, plunging at any defence. “I was not watching you. But if I had been, it would have been just as right as watching Hawkie. You ill-behaved creature! You’re a true minister’s son.” “It’s a mean thing to do, Turkey,” I persisted, seeking to stir up my own anger and blow up my self-approval. “I tell you I did not do it. I met Elsie Duff crying in the street because you had hit her with a dirty snowball. And then to go and smoke her and her poor grannie, till the old woman fell down in a faint or a fit, I don’t know which! You deserve a good pommelling yourself, I can tell you, Ranald. I’m ashamed of you.” He turned to go away. “Turkey, Turkey,” I cried, “isn’t the old woman better?” “I don’t know. I’m going to see,” he answered.