"Why, of course there is," says Essie. "Especially with me going off on a beano like this. Of course there is. My goodness, I know what it is for a lodger when he gets the sack! Whyever didn't you tell us before--all of us? Then we might have talked it over, and ten to one Dad could have advised you. I've seen Dad get a lodger out of a mess before now. Just tell me. Whatever is it for?" "I hit one of the boys." Essie's eyes wince as though herself she felt the blow. "Not hard?" "As hard as ever I could." "Oh, dear!" says Essie reproachfully. "You never ought to do that, you know. Just a slap--that's nothing. I've fetched one of my Sunday-school boys a slap before now. But losing your temper, you know!" "He wanted it," said Mr. Wriford. "That's what you think," says Essie. "Well, never mind about that now. Just tell me." He tells her. He finds himself less indifferent to her sympathy as he proceeds. He finds it rather a relief to be telling her of it--rather pleasantly novel to be telling anybody anything. He tells her from the moment of his blow at Cupper, and why the blow was struck, to the furious onset of Mr. Pennyquick, slashing among the boys with his cane--the humourous aspect of which he for the first time perceives and laughs at--and he finds himself, as he concludes, rather leaning towards the sympathy he expects. But the sympathy is not for him; nor does Essie, who usually can see a joke in nothing at all, laugh at Mr. Pennyquick's wild gallop among his pupils. "Oh, those poor boys!" says Essie. "Don't I just feel sorry for them!" "You wouldn't if you knew them." "Wouldn't I, though! I wish I had half your chance!" He asks her impatiently, irritated at the unexpected attitude she has taken: "My chance at what?" "Why, your chance to make them happy. Why, they're not boys at all. I think it every time I see them." "No, they're little fiends." "That's silly talk," says Essie rather sharply. "I daresay you'd be a fiend, for that matter, with that old toad of a Whiskyquick not to care what happens to you except to frighten you to death." Mr. Wriford says coldly: "I didn't know we were talking about the boys. You asked me to tell you--" "Oh," cries Essie, "don't you get a crosspatch now! I know it was about your sack we were talking, and I am sorry, truly and reely sorry. But, look here, I don't believe you'll get it, you know. I believe old Whiskyquick's that ashamed of himself he won't show his face for a week. An' I don't believe he even knows you hit that poor what's-his-name--Cupper?--so there! I believe he hit him for disturbing him, and I daresay catching him drinking, before the poor little fellow could speak. I do reely. Look here--"