P.S. I suggest that instead of £6 6s. 0d. I should pay £5 5s. 0d. for this term, plus, of course, the usual extras.
The pulse in Mr. Lidderdale's temple had never throbbed so remarkably as while Mark was reading this letter.
"A fine thing," he ranted, "if this story gets about in Slowbridge. A fine reward for all my kindness if you ruin my school. As for this man Ogilvie, I'll sue him for damages. Don't look at me with that expression of bestial defiance. Do you hear? What prevents my thrashing you as you deserve? What prevents me, I say?"
But Mark was not paying any attention to his uncle's fury; he was thinking about the unfortunate martyr under lock and key in The Limes, Cranborne Road, Slowbridge. He was wondering what would be the effect of this violent removal to the Antipodes and how that fundamental weakness of character would fare if Cyril were left to himself at his age.
"I think Mr. Pomeroy is a ruffian," said Mark. "Don't you, Uncle Henry? If he writes to the Bishop about Mr. Ogilvie, I shall write to the Bishop about him. I hate Protestants. I hate them."
"There's your father to the life. You'd like to burn them, wouldn't you?"
"Will you listen to him, Helen," he shouted to his sister. "Come here and listen to him. Listen to the boy we took in and educated and clothed and fed, listen to him saying he'd like to burn his uncle. Into Mr. Hitchcock's office you go at once. No more education if this is what it leads to. Read that letter, Helen, look at that book, Helen. _Catholic Prayers for Church of England People by the Reverend A.H. Stanton._ Look at this book, Helen. _The Catholic Religion by Vernon Staley._ No wonder you hate Protestants, you ungrateful boy. No wonder you're longing to burn your uncle and aunt. It'll be in the _Slowbridge Herald_ to-morrow. Headlines! Ruin! They'll think I'm a Jesuit in disguise. I ought to have got a very handsome sum of money for the good-will. Go back to your class-room, and if you have a spark of affection in your nature, don't brag about this to the other boys."
Mark, pondering all the morning the best thing to do for Cyril, remembered that a boy called Hacking lived at The Laurels, 36, Cranborne Road. He did not like Hacking, but wishing to utilize his back garden for the purpose of communicating with the prisoner he made himself agreeable to him in the interval between first and second school.