Only an Irish Boy Andy Burke's Fortunes

CHAPTER XIV MR. STONE IS CALLED TO ACCOUNT

At home God­frey gave a high­ly col­ored nar­ra­tive of the out­ra­geous man­ner in which he had been abused, for so he chose to rep­re­sent it. He gave this ac­count to his moth­er, for his fa­ther was not at home. In­deed, he was ab­sent for a day or two in a dis­tant city.

Mrs. Pre­ston was in­dig­nant.

“It is an out­rage, God­frey,” she said, com­press­ing her thin lips. “How did Mr. Stone dare to treat you in this way?”

“I was sur­prised, my­self,” said God­frey.

“Had he no more re­spect for your fa­ther's promi­nent po­si­tion?”

“It looks as if he didn't.”

“He is ev­ident­ly un­fit to keep the school. I shall try to per­suade your fa­ther to have him turned away.”

“I wish he might be,” said God­frey. “It would teach him to treat me with prop­er re­spect. Any­body would think that Irish boy was the son of the most im­por­tant man in town.”

Both God­frey and his moth­er ap­peared to take it for grant­ed that a teach­er should treat his pupils ac­cord­ing to their so­cial po­si­tion. This is cer­tain­ly very far from prop­er, as all my youth­ful read­ers will, I hope, agree.

“I don't want to go back to school this af­ter­noon, moth­er,” said God­frey.

“I don't won­der,” said his moth­er. “I will tell you what I will do. I will send a let­ter to Mr. Stone by you, ask­ing him to call here this evening. I will then take oc­ca­sion to ex­press my opin­ion of his con­duct.”

“That's good, moth­er,” said God­frey, joy­ful­ly.

He knew that his moth­er had a sharp tongue, and he longed to hear his moth­er “give it” to the teach­er whom he hat­ed.

“Then, you think I had bet­ter go to school this af­ter­noon?”

“Yes, with the note. If Mr. Stone does not apol­ogize, you need not go to-​mor­row. I will go up­stairs and write it at once.”

The note was quick­ly writ­ten, and, putting it care­ful­ly in his in­side pock­et, God­frey went to school. As he en­tered the school­room he stepped up to the desk and hand­ed the note to Mr. Stone.

“Here is a note from my moth­er,” he said, su­per­cil­ious­ly.

“Very well,” said the teach­er, tak­ing it grave­ly.

As it was not quite time to sum­mon the pupils, he opened it at once.

This was what he read:

“MR. STONE: Sir--My son God­frey in­forms me that you have treat­ed him in a very un­just man­ner, for which I find it im­pos­si­ble to ac­count. I shall be glad if you can find time to call at my house this evening, in or­der that I may hear from your lips an ex­pla­na­tion of the oc­cur­rence. Yours, in haste, ”Lu­cin­da Pre­ston."

“Pre­ston,” said Mr. Stone, af­ter read­ing this note, “you may say to your moth­er that I will call this evening.”

He did not ap­pear in the least dis­turbed by the con­tents of the note he had re­ceived from the rich­est and--in her own eyes--the most im­por­tant la­dy in the vil­lage. In fact, he had a large share of self-​re­spect and in­de­pen­dence, and was not like­ly to sub­mit to brow­beat­ing from any­one. He tried to be just in his treat­ment of the schol­ars un­der his charge, and if he ev­er failed, it was from mis­un­der­stand­ing or ig­no­rance, not from de­sign. In the present in­stance he felt that he had done right, and re­solved to main­tain the jus­tice of his con­duct.

Noth­ing of im­por­tance oc­curred in the af­ter­noon. God­frey was very qui­et and or­der­ly. He felt that he could af­ford to wait. With ma­li­cious joy, he looked for­ward to the scold­ing Mr. Stone was to get from his moth­er.

“He won't dare to talk to her,” he said to him­self. “I hope she'll make him apol­ogize to me. He ought to do it be­fore the school.”

Ev­ident­ly God­frey had a very in­ad­equate idea of the teach­er's pluck, if he thought such a thing pos­si­ble.

School was dis­missed, and God­frey went home. He dropped a hint to Ben Travers, that his moth­er was go­ing “to haul Mr. Stone over the coals,” as he ex­pressed it.

“Are you go­ing to be there?” asked Ben, when God­frey had fin­ished.

“Yes,” said God­frey. “It'll be my turn then.”

“Per­haps Mr. Stone will have some­thing to say,” said Ben, doubt­ful­ly.

“He won't dare to,” said God­frey, con­fi­dent­ly. “He knows my fa­ther could get him kicked out of school.”

“He's rather spunky, the mas­ter is,” said Ben, who, toady as he was, un­der­stood the char­ac­ter of Mr. Stone con­sid­er­ably bet­ter than God­frey did.

“I'll tell you all about it to-​mor­row morn­ing,” said God­frey.

“All right.”

“I ex­pect he'll apol­ogize to me for what he did.”

“Maybe he will,” an­swered Ben, but he thought it high­ly im­prob­able.

“Did you give my note to Mr. Stone?” asked his moth­er.

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he'd come around.”

“How did he ap­pear?”

“He looked a lit­tle ner­vous,” said God­frey, speak­ing not ac­cord­ing to facts, but ac­cord­ing to his wish­es.

“I thought so,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, with a look of sat­is­fac­tion. “He will find that he has made a mis­take in treat­ing you so out­ra­geous­ly.”

“Give it to him right and left, moth­er,” said God­frey, with more force than el­egance.

“You might ex­press your­self more prop­er­ly, my son,” said Mrs. Pre­ston. “I shall en­deav­or to im­press up­on his mind the im­pro­pri­ety of his con­duct.”

At half-​past sev­en, Mr. Stone rang the bell at Mrs. Pre­ston's door, and was ush­ered in with­out de­lay.

“Good-​evening, Mrs. Pre­ston,” he said, bow­ing. “Your son brought me a note this af­ter­noon, re­quest­ing me to call. I have com­plied with your re­quest.”

“Be seat­ed, Mr. Stone,” said the la­dy frigid­ly, not of­fer­ing her hand.

“Thank you,” said the teach­er, with equal cer­emo­ny, and did as in­vit­ed.

“I sup­pose you can guess the ob­ject of my re­quest,” said Mrs. Pre­ston.

“I think you stat­ed it in your note.”

“I de­sire an ex­pla­na­tion of the man­ner in which you treat­ed my son this forenoon, Mr. Stone.”

“Par­don me, madam; your son is in the room.”

“Well, sir?”

“I de­cline dis­cussing the mat­ter be­fore him.”

“I can­not un­der­stand why you should ob­ject to his pres­ence.”

“I am his teach­er, and he is sub­ject to my au­thor­ity. You ap­par­ent­ly de­sire to find fault with the man­ner in which I have ex­er­cised that au­thor­ity. It is im­prop­er that the dis­cus­sion up­on this point should take place be­fore him.”

“May I stay in the room, moth­er?” asked God­frey, who was alarmed lest he should miss the spec­ta­cle of Mr. Stone's hu­mil­ia­tion.

“I re­al­ly don't see why not,” re­turned his moth­er.

“Madam,” said Mr. Stone, ris­ing, “I will bid you good-​evening.”

“What, sir; be­fore we have spo­ken on the sub­ject?”

“I dis­tinct­ly de­cline to speak be­fore your son, for the rea­sons al­ready giv­en.”

“This is very sin­gu­lar, sir. How­ev­er, I will hu­mor your whims. God­frey, you may leave the room.”

“Can't I stay?”

“I am com­pelled to send you out.”

God­frey went out, though with a very ill grace.

“Now, madam,” said the teach­er, “I have no ob­jec­tion to telling you that I first rep­ri­mand­ed your son for bru­tal treat­ment of a younger school­mate, and then forcibly car­ried him back to his seat, when he en­deav­ored to leave the school­room with­out my per­mis­sion.”

It was Mrs. Pre­ston's turn to be sur­prised. She had ex­pect­ed to over­awe the teach­er, and in­stead of that found him firm­ly and in­de­pen­dent­ly de­fend­ing his course.

“Mr. Stone,” she said, “my son tells me that you praised an Irish boy in your school for a vi­olent and bru­tal as­sault which he made up­on him.”

“I did not praise him for that. I praised him for prompt­ly in­ter­fer­ing to pre­vent God­frey from abus­ing a boy small­er and younger than him­self.”

“God­frey had good cause for pun­ish­ing the boy you re­fer to. He act­ed in self-​de­fense.”

“He has doubt­less mis­rep­re­sent­ed the af­fair to you, madam, as he did to me.”

“You take this An­drew Burke's word against his?”

“I form my judg­ment up­on the tes­ti­mo­ny of an eye­wit­ness, and from what I know of your son's char­ac­ter.”

“From your own state­ment, this low Irish boy----”

“To whom do you re­fer, madam?”

“To the Irish boy.”

“I have yet to learn that he is low.”

“Do you mean to com­pare him with my son?”

“In wealth, no. Oth­er­wise, you mustn't blame me for say­ing that I hold him en­tire­ly equal in re­spectabil­ity, and in some im­por­tant points his su­pe­ri­or.”

“Re­al­ly, sir, your lan­guage is most ex­traor­di­nary.”

At this mo­ment there was an in­ter­rup­tion. God­frey had been lis­ten­ing at the key­hole, but find­ing that dif­fi­cult, had opened the door slight­ly, but in his in­ter­est man­aged to stum­ble against it. The door flew open, and he fell for­ward up­on his knees on the car­pet of the sit­ting-​room.