never to call me Rectus again, just wag your big toe, either
one."

I stiffened my toes, as if my feet were cast in brass. Rectus moved his
chair a little around, so that he could keep an eye on my toes. Then he
looked at his watch, and said:

"It's seven o'clock now, and that's an hour from breakfast time. I don't
want to keep you there any longer than I can help. You'd better wag your
toe now, and be done with it. It's no use to wait."

"Wag?" I thought to myself. "Never!"

"I know what you're thinking," he went on. "You think that if you lie
there long enough, you'll be all right, for when the chambermaid comes
to do up the room, I must let her in, or else I'll have to say you're
sick, and then the Chippertons will come up."

That was exactly what I was thinking.

"But that wont do you any good," said he, "I've thought of all that."

He was a curious boy. How such a thing as this should have come into his
mind, I couldn't imagine. He must have read of something of the kind.
But to think of his trying it on _me_! I ground my teeth.

He sat and watched me for some time longer. Once or twice he fixed the
handkerchief over my mouth, for he seemed anxious that I should be as
comfortable as possible. He was awfully kind, to be sure!

"It isn't right that anybody should have such a name sticking to them
always," he said. "And if I'd thought you'd have stopped it, I wouldn't
have done this. But I knew you. You would just have laughed and kept
on."

The young scoundrel! Why didn't he try me?

"Yesterday, when the governor met us, Corny called me Rectus, and even
he said that was a curious name, and he didn't remember that I gave it
to him, when he wrote that paper for us."

Oh, ho! That was it, was it? Getting proud and meeting governors! Young
prig!

Now Rectus was quiet a little longer, and then he got up.

"I didn't think you'd be so stubborn," he said, "but perhaps you know
your own business best. I'm not going to keep you there until breakfast
is ready, and people want to come in."

Then he went over to the window, and came back directly with a little
black paint-pot, with a brush in it.

"Now," said he, "if you don't promise, in five minutes, to never call me
Rectus again, I'm going to paint one-half of your face black. I got this
paint yesterday from the cane-man, on purpose."

Oil-paint! I could smell it.

"Now, you may be sure I'm going to do it," he said.

Oh, I was sure! When he said he'd do