‘Copped’ was a word which she had learned from Cyril.

“Go on, you old bitch!” Cyril growled.

As he returned from the cellar, Amy said angrily: 

“I told you I should tell your father the next time you called me that, and I shall.  You mark my words.”

“Cant! cant!” he retorted.  “Do you think I don’t know who’s been canting?  Cant! cant!”

Upstairs in the parlour Samuel was explaining the matter to his wife.  There had been a perfect epidemic of smoking in the school.  The head-master had discovered it and, he hoped, stamped it out.  What had disturbed the head-master far more than the smoking was the fact that a few boys had been found to possess somewhat costly pipes, cigar-holders, or cigarette-holders.  The head-master, wily, had not confiscated these articles; he had merely informed the parents concerned.  In his opinion the articles came from one single source, a generous thief; he left the parents to ascertain which of them had brought a thief into the world.

Further information Mr. Povey had culled from Amy, and there could remain no doubt that Cyril had been providing his chums with the utensils of smoking, the till supplying the means.  He had told Amy that the things which he secreted in the cellar had been presented to him by blood-brothers.  But Mr. Povey did not believe that.  Anyhow, he had marked every silver coin in the till for three nights, and had watched the till in the mornings from behind the merino-pile; and the florin on the parlour-table spoke of his success as a detective.

Constance felt guilty on behalf of Cyril.  As Mr. Povey outlined his case she could not free herself from an entirely irrational sensation of sin; at any rate of special responsibility.  Cyril seemed to be her boy and not Samuel’s boy at all.  She avoided her husband’s glance.  This was very odd.

Then Cyril returned, and his parents composed their faces and he deposited, next to the florin, a sham meerschaum pipe in a case, a tobacco-pouch, a cigar of which one end had been charred but the other not cut, and a half-empty packet of cigarettes without a label.

Nothing could be hid from Mr. Povey.  The details were distressing.

“So Cyril is a liar and a thief, to say nothing of this smoking!” Mr. Povey concluded.

He spoke as if Cyril had invented strange and monstrous sins.  But deep down in his heart a little voice was telling him, as regards the smoking, that he had set the example.  Mr. Baines had never smoked.  Mr. Critchlow never smoked.  Only men like Daniel smoked.

Thus far Mr. Povey had conducted the proceedings to his own satisfaction.  He had proved the crime.  He had made Cyril confess.  The whole affair lay revealed.  Well—­what next?  Cyril ought to have dissolved in repentance; something dramatic ought to have occurred.  But Cyril simply stood with hanging, sulky head, and gave no sign of proper feeling.