etch, and richly deserves what he will no doubt get tomorrow."

"And is that all? Have you told only half your story, Humphrey?"

This direct question made me still more uncomfortable, especially
as my father's eyes were sternly bent upon me. He hated lies, and
half truths still more, and I could see that he was dimly
suspecting me of a complicity in Joe Punchard's action to which I
had not confessed. But Captain Galsworthy was a shrewd old man, and
he saw at once how the matter stood.

"No peaching, eh, lad?" he said kindly. "I've an inquisitive turn
of mind, and after that performance with the barrel--and it was a
monstrous comical sight, Ellery, to see the little alderman skip
out of the way when the barrel made straight for his shins, but not
so funny when he pulls at the shock head sticking out and finds it
belongs to his own son--after that performance, I say, I caught
young Dick Cludde by the ear, and made him tell me the story. And
it begins with apples--like this excellent cider of yours, Ellery."

He quaffed a deep draught and leaned back in his chair, giving me
another friendly wink. The captain was ever somewhat long winded
over his stories, and I could see that my father was growing
impatient; but he sat back in his chair with his hands upon the
arms and said never a word.

"Young Cludde and Cyrus Vetch, it seems, have a sweet tooth for
your apples, Ellery," said the captain, "and Cludde told me with a
fine indignation that Humphrey flatly refused to fill his pockets
for their behoof. They were proceeding to enforce their
requisition, I gather, when the boy broke from them, and, finding
himself hard pressed by and by, took refuge behind Joe Punchard's
bandy legs. And Joe must needs take up the cudgels on behalf of the
oppressed, and chose an original way of punishing the oppressor.
And thus the rolling of the barrel is explained."

At this Mistress Pennyquick broke out into vehement denunciation of
the two boys, but my father silenced her. Quietly he began to
question me: he would take no denial, and drew out of me bit by bit
the whole story of the bullying I had suffered from those two of my
schoolfellows.

And then he was more angry than I had seen him ever before. He
smote the arm of the chair with his great fist, and vowed he would
not have me ill used; and though he said but little, and never once
raised his voice, I knew by the set of his lips and the gleam of
his eye that it would go hard wi