Uncle Jack, walking up and
down the room in a very excited way. "You see, ever since you were born
we've made a sort of playmate of you, and since you grew older, and have
been down here with us, you know we have not treated you as if you were
a boy."

"Well, no, uncle, I suppose you have not."

"We have talked with you, consulted with you, and generally behaved
towards you as if you were a young man."

"And now all at once you turn round and punish me by treating me as if I
were a little boy."

"No, no, my lad; be reasonable. We have been consulting together."

"Without me."

"Yes, without you; because we felt that we were not doing you justice--
that we were not behaving as good brothers to your mother, in letting
you go on sharing these risks."

"But there may be no more, uncle."

"But there will be a great many more, my boy," said Uncle Jack solemnly;
"and what would our feelings be if some serious accident were to happen
to you?"

"Just the same, Uncle Jack," I cried, "as mine would be, and my father's
and mother's, if some accident were to happen to you."

Uncle Jack wrinkled up his broad forehead, stared hard at me, and then,
in a half-angry, half amused way, he went to the table, took up an
imaginary piece of soap and began to rub it in his palms.

"I wash my hands of this fellow, boys," he said. "Dick, you are the
oldest; take him in hand, dress him down, give him sixpence to buy
hardbake and lollipops, and send him about his business."

"Make it half-a-crown, uncle," I cried, with my cheeks burning with
anger; "and then you might buy me a toy-horse too--one with red wafers
all over it, and a rabbit-skin tail."

"My dear Cob," said Uncle Jack, "why will you be so wilfully blind to
what is good for you?"

My cheeks grew hotter, and if I had been alone I should have burst into
a passion of tears, but I could not do such a thing then, when I wanted
to prove to these three that I was fit to be trusted and too old to be
sent home.

"We do not come to this conclusion without having carefully thought it
out, boy," cried Uncle Bob.

"Very well, then!" I cried, almost beside myself with passion.

"Confess now," said Uncle Bob; "haven't you often felt very much alarmed
at having to keep watch of a night in that lonely factory?"

"Of course I have."

"And wished yourself at home?" said Uncle Dick.

"Scores of times, uncle."

"Well, then, now we wish you to go, feeling that it is best for yo