“Old Aunt Pat,
    You’re mean as a rat!”

It was just as he yelled this that the cook opened the pantry door, and I made my fatal plunge into the dark and the crock of muffin batter.

As I hid behind the spice-boxes I heard Doctor Tremont tell Phil, in a very stern voice, to march up-stairs, and stay there until he came for him.  It must have been nearly an hour that I hid on that shelf, waiting for a chance to make my escape.  The batter began to harden and cake on me until I could not move without every hair on my body pulling painfully.

Things were set to rights in the dining-room after awhile and the family had supper.  Some bread and milk were sent up to Phil.  Soon after I reached the laundry, Stuart found me there.  He turned the hose on me and gave me a rough scrubbing.  Then he wrapped me in a piece of a blanket and took me up-stairs to dry before the fire in his room.  Phil had gone to bed, and was lying there sobbing, with his head under the pillows when we came in.  He wouldn’t talk at first, but after awhile he told Stuart that his father had given him a hard whipping for speaking so disrespectfully to an old lady like Miss Patricia, and that he could not go to the table again until he had asked her pardon.  That Phil vowed he would not do so long as he lived.  He had made up his mind to run away in the morning.  Nobody treated him right, and he didn’t intend to stand it any longer.

“But, Phil,” said Stuart, “you know yourself, that it wasn’t very nice of Dago to go walking around the table through the butter and applesauce, and all the things to eat.  I don’t wonder that Aunt Patricia was provoked, ’specially when he has done so many other things to tease her.  She didn’t hurt him much for all her whacking around.  I saw nearly as much of the fight as you did.  She didn’t hit him more than one lime out of ten.  I was perfectly willing that my half of Dago should get what it deserved.”

At that, Phil cried still harder.  “Well, if you say that,” he sobbed, giving his pillow an angry thump, “then you don’t love Dago as much as I do.  You’re against him, too.  Nobody cares anything for either of us, and I’ll take him and go off with him in the morning.  I’m going as soon as it is light.”

But when the daylight came, Phil was not in such a hurry to go.  He still refused to ask his Aunt Patricia’s pardon, so his breakfast was sent up-stairs to him, and he ate in sulky silence.  He waited until he saw his father drive away down the street, and then he went in search of Elsie.  She is always wanting to do everything that he does, so he had no trouble in persuading her to help him carry out his plans.