But the human witnesses to the scene were less forbearing;—being only humans. The Mistress cried out, in sharp protest at the little brute’s action. And the Master leaned forward, swinging Cyril clear of the ground. Holding the child firmly, but with no roughness, the Master steadied his own voice as best he could; and said: “This time you’ve not even bothered to wait till our backs were turned. So don’t waste breath by crying and saying you didn’t do it. You’re not my child; so I have no right to punish you. And I’m not going to. But I want you to know you’ve just kicked something that’s worth fifty of you.” “You let me down!” Cyril snarled. “Lad is too white and clean and square to hurt anything that can’t hit back,” continued the Master. “And you are not. That’s the difference between you. One of the several million differences,—all of them in Lad’s favour. When a child begins life by being cruel to dumb animals, it’s a pretty bad sign for the way he’s due to treat his fellow-humans in later years,—if ever any of them are at his mercy. For your own sake, learn to behave at least as decently as a dog. If—” “You let me down, you big bully!” squalled Cyril, bellowing with impotent fury. “You let me down! I—” “Certainly,” assented the Master, lowering him to the floor. “I didn’t hurt you. I only held you so you couldn’t run out of the room, before I’d finish speaking; as you did, the time I caught you putting red pepper on Lad’s food. He—” "You wouldn’t dare touch me, if my folks were here, you big bully!" screeched the child, in a veritable mania of rage; jumping up and down and actually foaming at the mouth. “But I’ll tell ’em on you! See if I don’t! I’ll tell ’em how you slung me around and said I was worse’n a dirty dog like Lad. And Daddy’ll lick you for it. See if he don’t! He—” The Master could not choke back a laugh; though the poor Mistress looked horribly distressed at the maniac outburst, and strove soothingly to check it. She, like the Master, remembered now that Cyril’s doting mother had spoken of the child’s occasional fits of red wrath. But this was the first glimpse either of them had had of these. Hitherto, craft had served Cyril’s turn better than fury. At sound of the Master’s unintentional laugh the unfortunate child went quite beside himself in his transport of rage. “I won’t stay in your nasty old house!” he shrieked. “I’m going to the very first house I can find. And I’m going to tell ’em how you hammered a little feller that hasn’t any folks here to stick up for him. And I’ll get ’em to take me in and send a tel’gram to Daddy and Mother to come save me. I—” To the astonishment of both his hearers, Cyril broke off chokingly in his yelled tirade; caught up a bibelot from the table, hurled it with all his puny force at Lad, the innocent cause of the fracas, and then rushed from the room and from the house.