"_Very_ likely!" he said--to himself this time.
So what did he do, when he had heard all about it, but promise to whack
Pete Bolton with his stick the first time he got him. And Sarah began to
cry all over again, saying that Pete had no mother and couldn't be
expected to know any better.
"Well," said he, "that's as may be! But anyway, I'll be a father to Pete
the next time I catch him. I'll teach him to let little girls alone.
I've dealt with heaps of Pete Boltons before! Oh, often! Don't you
trouble, little girl!"
And he actually got his hat and walked home with Little Sarah, growling
all the time. I don't know what he gave her. But, anyway, what he said
to her mother made the poor woman so happy that she nearly forgot to be
ill. And on Monday I noticed that Little Sarah had new whole shoes and
so had her brother Billy. So something must have happened, and though
nothing was said, I can pretty well guess what.
So can Hugh John--and you too, my dear Diary. Only we won't tell. But
the "Compulsory Man," who makes boys attend school, descended on wicked
Pete Bolton, and then the schoolmaster fell on him, so that Pete became
a reformed character--this is, so long as he was sore. Then, of course,
he forgot, and began playing truant again.
Only after that he let Little Sarah alone. Because, you see, he never
knew when, in a narrow lane, he might meet a big man, pulling at a big
mustache, and carrying a very big stick. Because the sermons that big
man preached with his stick were powerful, and Pete Bolton did not
forget them easily.
The End--moral included free of charge, as Hugh John says.