But his father did not stop to listen. His only idea was to punish Bram. The threat to Caleb was really nothing more than the effervescence of his rage. In the hall he picked out from the umbrella-stand a blackthorn stick, armed with which he entered his mother’s parlour, where he found her feeding Bram with crumpets. “So it was you, was it?” he chattered. “Go up to your bedroom and wait for me.” “What are you going to do to the boy?” old Mrs. Fuller demanded. “What am I going to do to him? I’m going to teach him a lesson with this.” He banged the floor with the blackthorn. “You’ll never use that on him, Joshua,” said his mother. “Won’t I?” “Never! Bram, don’t let your father touch you with that stick. If he strikes you, strike him. You’re as good a man as he is in a fight. Strike him hard, hard, d’ye hear?” “Are you mad, mamma, to encourage the young ruffian in this way?” “He’ll be mad if he lets you strike him.” While the other two were talking, a very white Bram was settling his future as rapidly as a drowning man is supposed to review his past. Fifty tintacks at sixpence apiece? Twenty-five shillings in his pocket. The only time he had ever been rich in the whole of his life! This would mean leaving the grammar school. He would have to work in the factory. “The bottom of the ladder, my boy; that’s the way to begin.” No pocket money. Sticking at accounts, Brigham, eternally, hopelessly. Always Brigham. And Lebanon House. And the flogging. The pain wouldn’t matter. But the disgrace of it at his age! And begging grandpapa’s pardon. Shouting his apologies in those hairy ears. Coming always a little closer and trying to make himself understood, closer still. So close that he would be sick with the smell of stale food on that filthy old white beard. Apologising to the rest of them. To Giddy and Dopping and Hunnybum and Pead. Apologising to that horrible brute Fricker? No! Prayed for publicly by the Peculiars as last Sunday they prayed for that girl who had a baby? No! “How did you find out, papa?” Bram heard himself saying from an infinitely remote distance. He was shivering lest he should hear that Jack Fleming had betrayed him. “Because, thank the dear Lord, I have one son who knows his duty as a Christian,” his father was saying. Of course! Caleb had had a taste of tintack last night. No! No! No! He could not give that little sneak the pleasure of gloating over his punishment. No! The pictures of Blundell’s Diorama rolled across his memory. Cobalt seas and marble halls, pagodas, palms ... twenty-five shillings in his pocket and the world before him if he could only make up his mind. “Did you hear me tell you to go up to your bedroom, my boy?” “Grandmamma, grandmamma, let me kiss you good-bye,” Bram cried by the door. The old lady drew near. “Grandmamma,” he whispered as she folded him to her withered breast, “I’m going to run away. Can you keep him in?”