etfully at the
newspaper which he had been comfortably reading when Mott's knock came
to the door.

"He's done much worse than tell a story," repeated Maurice, "though for
that matter he's told two or three stories too. But, papa, you know
about nurse losing a half-sovereign? Well, _Carrots_ had got it all the
time; he took it out of nurse's purse, and hid it away in his paint-box,
without telling anybody. He can't deny it, though he tried to."

"Carrots," said his father sternly, "is this true?"

Carrots looked up in his father's face; that face, generally so kind and
merry, was now all gloom and displeasure--why?--Carrots could not
understand, and he was too frightened and miserable to collect his
little wits together to try to do so. He just gave a sort of little
tremble and began to cry again.

"Carrots," repeated his father, "is this true?"

"I don't know," sobbed Carrots.

Now Captain Desart, Carrots' father, was, as I think I have told you, a
sailor. If any of you children have a sailor for your father, you must
not think I mean to teach you to be disrespectful when I say that
sailors _are_, there is no doubt, inclined to be hot-tempered and hasty.
And I do not think on the whole that they understand much about
children, though they are often very fond of them and very kind. All
this was the case with Carrots' father. He had been so much away from
his children while they were little, that he really hardly knew how
they had been brought up or trained or anything about their childish
ways--he had left them entirely to his wife, and scarcely considered
them as in any way "_his_ business," till they were quite big boys and
girls.

But once he did begin to notice them, though very kind, he was very
strict. He had most decided opinions about the only way of checking
their faults whenever these were serious enough to attract his
attention, and he could not and would not be troubled with arguing, or
what he called "splitting hairs," about such matters. A fault was a
fault; telling a falsehood was telling a falsehood; and he made no
allowance for the excuses or "palliating circumstances" there might be
to consider. One child, according to his ideas, was to be treated
exactly like another; why the same offence should deserve severer
punishment with a self-willed, self-confident, bold, matter-of-fact lad,
such as Maurice, than with a timid, fanciful, baby-like creature as was
his little Fabian, he could not have un