looked with his usual magnificent calm from one to the other. He seemed but mildly interested.
"Come," said his father.
Alice cast one glance at his gallant retreating rear and ran up-stairs with her fingers in her ears.
They faced each other, father and son. The son was calm, the father nervous. The son smiled reassuringly. The father tried piteously to echo the smile. He didn't know how to begin. He was deeply embarrassed. The first words he spoke were not those he had meant to speak. They were:
"Hang it all, your mother ought to do this!"
This was a wrong opening. He covered it up by: "You ought not to touch your Grandma's goldfish. We have told you time and again not to touch your Grandma's goldfish. You must mind your father and mother. All good little boys mind their fathers and mothers."
Robert looked at him unblinking and said nothing.
"Now," said Tom, "see what you've done. I've got to spank you so that you won't touch those fish again."
He felt in a false position. He was angry at the world, especially as all Robert did was to say dreamily:
"I like a goldfish."
"That may be," his parent replied. "You can't have them. Now I've got to spank you. Do you know why I've got to spank you, Robert?"
"Because I like a fish," replied Robert.
For the first time Tom understood why people in ancient times beat their breasts under the stress of emotion. "I'll get this over," he thought. He laid Robert over his knee. Robert was unresisting. His fat legs hung down one way, his fat arms hung down the other. He lifted his head up like a turtle and looked inquiringly at his father.
