ng men. Don't you _want_ me to grow up a
strong man? He's ever so strong an' _he_ did 'em. Why shun't I?"

His mother found a pan with the bottom burnt out and at once accused
William of the crime. William could not deny it.

"Well, I was makin' sumthin', sumthin' he'd told us an' I forgot it.
Well, I've _got_ to make things if I'm a scout. I didn't _mean_ to
forget it. I won't forget it next time. It's a rotten pan, anyway, to
burn itself into a hole jus' for that."

At this point William's father received a note from a neighbour whose
garden adjoined William's and whose life had been rendered intolerable
by William's efforts upon his bugle.

The bugle was confiscated.

Darkness descended upon William's soul.

"Well," he muttered, "I'm goin' under canvas next week an' I'm jolly
_glad_ I'm goin'. P'r'aps you'll be sorry when I'm gone."

He went out into the garden and stood gazing moodily into space, his
hands in the pocket of his short scout trousers, for William dressed
on any and every occasion in his official costume.

"Can't even have the bugle," he complained to the landscape. "Can't
even use their rotten ole pans. Can't tie knots in any of their ole
things. Wot's the good of _bein'_ a scout?"

His indignation grew and with it a desire to be avenged upon his
family.

"I'd like to _do_ somethin'," he confided to a rose bush with a
ferocious scowl. "Somethin' jus' to show 'em."

Then his face brightened. He had an idea.

He'd get lost. He'd get really lost. They'd be sorry then alright.
They'd p'r'aps think he was dead and they'd be sorry then alright. He
imagined their relief, their tearful apologies when at last he
returned to the bosom of his family. It was worth trying, anyway.

He set off cheerfully down the drive. He decided to stay away for
lunch and tea and supper, and to return at dusk to a penitent,
conscience-stricken family.

He first made his way to a neighbouring wood, where he arranged a pile
of twigs for a fire, but they refused to light, even with the aid of
the match that William found adhering to a piece of putty in the
recess of one of his pockets.

Slightly dispirited, he turned his attention to his handkerchief and
tied knots in it till it gave way under the strain. William's
handkerchiefs, being regularly used to perform the functions of
blotting paper among other duties not generally entrusted to
handkerchiefs, were always in the last stages of decrepitude.

He felt rathe