At the first note of the bugle Alfred sprang up in bed, sure that the drill-sergeant would come to pull him out first.  As he marched listlessly up and down the yard at drill, the wind blew pitilessly, and the dog gnawed at him till he was red and sore.  At meals and in school he was sure that secret eyes were watching him.  He searched everywhere for some hole where he might hide the thing.  But the building was too irreproachable to shelter a mouse.

Next day was Christmas Eve.  He had heard from the “permanents” that at Christmas each child received an apple, an orange, and twelve nuts in a paper bag.  He hungered for them.  Even the ordinary meals had become the chief points of interest in life, and the days were named from the dinners.  He was forgetting the scanty and uncertain food of his home, now that dinner came as regularly as in a rich man’s house or the Zoo.  And Christmas promised something far beyond the ordinary.  There was to be pork.  At Christmas, at all events, he would lay himself out for perfect enjoyment, undisturbed by terrors.  He would take the dog back, and be at peace again.

Just before tea-time he saw the superintendent pass over to the infants’ side.  He stole along the sounding corridors to the office, and noiselessly opened the door.  There was somebody there.  But it was only Looney, who, being able to count like a calculating machine because no other thoughts disturbed him, had been set to tie up in bundles of a hundred each certain pink and blue envelopes which lay in heaps on the floor.  Each envelope contained a Christmas card with a text, and every child on Christmas morning found one laid ready on its plate at breakfast.  A wholesale stationer supplied them, and a benevolent lady paid the bill.

“Leave me alone,” cried Looney from habit, “I ain’t doin’ nuffin.”

“All right,” said Alfred airily; “I’ve only come to fetch somethink.”

But just at that moment he heard the superintendent’s footstep coming along the passage.  There was no escape and no time for thought.  With the instinct of terror he put the dog down noiselessly beside Looney on the carpet, drew quickly back, and stood rigid beside the door as it opened.

“Hullo!” said the superintendent, “what are you doing here?”

“Nothink, sir, only somethink,” Alfred stammered.

“What’s the meaning of that?” said the superintendent.

“I wanted to speak to that boy very pertikler, sir,” said Alfred.

The superintendent looked at Looney.  But Looney in turning round had caught sight of the dog at his side, and was gazing at it open-mouthed, as a countryman gazes at a pigeon produced from a conjuror’s hat.  Suddenly he pounced upon it as though he was afraid it would fly away, and kept it close hidden under his hands.

“Oh, that’s what you wanted to speak about so particular, is it?” said the superintendent.  “That paperweight’s been lost these two or three days, and it was you who stole it, was it?”