Tell England | Page 5

pushed the
more his end of the seat went up into the air, while the other remained
fast in the ground. The only time he succeeded in making the seat travel
at all it went so fast that it laid him on his stomach in the lane. So he
tried pulling from the other end. This was only partially successful. The
seat moved towards him with jerks, at one time arriving most damnably
on his shins, and at another throwing him into a sitting position on to
the ground. And there is a portion of small boys which is very sensitive
to stony ground. At these repeated checks the natural child in Mr.
Pennybet caused his eyes to become moist, whereupon the strong and
unconquerable man in him choked back a sob of temper, and pulled the
seat with a passionate determination. I tell you, such indomitable grit
will always get its way, and the seat was well lodged against Mr.
Pennybet's wall and beneath his green fastness, before the afternoon
blushed into the lovers' hour. He returned into his garden, and, climbing
up the wall by means of the mantling ivy, reached his chosen
observation-post. Through curtains of greenery he watched the arrival
of a pair of lovers, and held his breath, as they seated themselves
beneath him.
They were an even more ridiculous couple than their kind usually are.
And, when the gentleman squeezed the lady, she laughed so foolishly
that Archie Pennybet was within an ace of forgetting himself and
heartily laughing too. It was worse still, when they began the
pernicious practice of "rubbing noses." For the operation was so new
and unexpected, and withal so congenial to Archie, that he risked
discovery by craning forward to study it. He watched with jaws parted

in a wide gape of amazement, and then said to himself: "Well, I'm
damned!" There is but one step (I am told) from rubbing noses to the
real business of the kiss. And it was when the gentleman brought the
lady's lips into contact with his own, and the peculiar sound was heard
in the lane, that Mr. Pennybet's moment had come.
"Hem! Hem! Oh, I say!" he suggested loudly, and sought safety by
slipping rapidly down his side of the wall, scratching his hands and
bare knees as he fell.
This fine triumph had been at a cost. Archie surveyed himself. His new
suit was clearly disreputable. And, in his mother's eyes, the one crime
punishable by whipping was to make a new suit disreputable. The more
he studied the extent of the damage, the more he felt convinced that, in
the expiation of this potty little offence, his body would be
commandeered to play a painful and rather passive part.
His brain, therefore, worked rapidly and well. It was more than possible,
thought he, that his mother's sympathy could be induced to exceed her
indignation. She was really an affectionate woman; and this was the
line to go upon. So he squeezed the scratches in his knees to expedite
the issue of blood, and bravely entered the house.
"Mother," he called, introducing suitable pathos into his tones, "Mother,
I've fallen all down the wall!"
This effective opening, should it seem successful, it was his intention to
follow up with seasonable allusions to his birthday. But alas! one
glimpse of Mrs. Pennybet's face when she saw his suit, showed him the
folly of remaining on the scene, and with the speed of a fawn, he was
out in the garden, and up an elm tree, swaying about like a crow's nest.
And there, a minute later, was Mrs. Pennybet standing below, her skirts
held up in one hand, a small cane in the other.
"Come down, Archie," she said. "Come down."
"Not a bit of it," replied her son. "You come up!"
* * * * *
At least Mrs. Pennybet, a vivacious _raconteuse_, always declared to
me that such was his reply. I do not trust these mothers, however, and
regard it as a piece of her base embroidery. At any rate, it is certain that
her effort to secure Archie for punishment was quite unsuccessful. And,
an hour afterwards, a small figure came quietly down the trunk of the
tree, and, entering the room where his mother was, sat quickly in a big

arm-chair, and held on tightly to its arms. This position prevented
access to that particular area of Archie Pennybet, which, in the view of
himself, his mother, and all sound conservatives, must be exposed, if
corporal punishment is to be the standard thing. Mrs. Pennybet, good
woman, admitted her defeat, and kissed him repeatedly, while he still
held himself tight in his chair.
Such was Archie Pennybet, whom Mrs. Pennybet considered a
remarkably fine boy, and the son