“Please sir,” said Alfred, beginning to cry, “’e never done it, and I didn’t mean no ’arm.”

“Oh, enough of that,” said the superintendent.  “I’ve got other things to do besides standing here arguing with you all night.  I’ll send for you both at bed-time, and then I’ll teach you to come stealing about here, you young thieves.  Now drop that, and clear out!” he added more angrily to Looney, who was still chuckling with astonishment over his prize.

So they were both well beaten that night, and Looney never knew why, but took it as an incident in his chain of dim sensations.  Next day they alone did not receive either the Christmas card or the paper bag.  But after dinner Clem had them up before him, and gave them each a nutshell and a piece of orange-peel, adding the paternal advice:  “Look ’ere, my sons, if you two can’t pinch better than that, you’d best turn up pinchin’ altogether till you see yer father do it.”

On Boxing Day Mrs. Reeve at last contrived to come again.  She was informed that she could not see her son because he was kept indoors for stealing.

After this the machinery of the institution had its own way with him.  It was as though he were passed through each of its scientific appliances in turn—­the steam washing machine, the centrifugal steam wringer, the hot-air drying horse, the patent mangle, the gas ovens, the heating pipes, the spray baths, the model bakery, and the central engine.  After drifting through the fourth standard he was sent every other day to a workshop to fit him for after life.  Looney joined a squad of little gardeners which shuffled about the walks, two deep, with spades shouldered like rifles.  Alfred was sent to the shoemaker’s, as there was a vacancy there.  He did such work as he was afraid not to do, and all went well as long as nothing happened.

Only two events marked the lapse of time.  Mrs. Reeve did not recover from the “twist in her inside.”  In answer to her appeal, a brother-in-law in the north took charge of her two remaining children, and then she died.  It was about three years after Alfred had entered the school.  He was sorry; but the next day came, and the next, and there was no visible change.  The bell rang:  breakfast, dinner, and tea succeeded each other.  It was difficult to imagine that he had suffered any loss.

The other event was more startling, and it helped to obliterate the last thought of his mother’s death.  After a brief interval of parental guidance, Clem had returned to the school for about the tenth time.  As usual he devoted his vivacious intellect chiefly to Looney, in whose progress he expressed an almost grandmotherly interest.  Looney sputtered and made sport as usual, till one night an unbaptized idea was somehow wafted into the limbo of his brain.  He was counting over the faggots in the great store-room under his dormitory when the thought came.  Soon afterwards he went upstairs, and quietly got into bed.