2
othes and boots!"
"Oh, Vince, my dear, how you have torn your trousers again!"
"Torn them again!--the boy's a regular scarecrow!" cried the Doctor. "I will not pay for good things for him to go cliff-climbing and wading and burrowing in caves.--Here: what are you going to do?"
"Take him indoors to sew up that slit."
"No!" cried the Doctor, filling up the bottle; and then, making a small cork squeak as he screwed it in, "Take your scissors and cut the legs off four inches above the knees."
"Robert!" cried Mrs Burnet, in a tone of protest.
"And look here, Vince: you can give up wearing shoes and stockings; they are for civilised beings, not for young savages."
"My dear Robert, you are not in earnest?"
"Ah, but I am. Let him chip and tear his skin: that will grow up again: clothes will not."
"All right, father; I shan't mind," said the boy, smiling. "Save taking shoes and stockings off for wading."
"Vincent, my dear!" cried his mother, "how absurd! You would look nice the next time Michael Ladelle came for you."
"He'd do the same, mother. He always imitates me."
"Yes; you're a nice pair," said the Doctor. "I never saw such young savages."
"You're too hard upon them, Robert," said Mrs Burnet, laying her arm on her son's shoulder. "It does not matter out in this wild place, where there is no one to see him but the fishing people; and see what a healthy, natural life it is for them."
"Healthy! natural!" cried the Doctor sharply. "So you want to see him grow up into a sort of Peter the Wild Boy, madam?"
"No," said Mrs Burnet, exchanging an affectionate glance with her sun-tanned son. "Peter the Wild Boy did not have a college tutor to teach him the classics, did he, Vince?"
"No, mother; he must have been a lucky fellow," said the boy, laughing.
"For shame, Vincent!" cried Mrs Burnet, shaking her head at the boy reprovingly. "You do not mean that."
"I believe he does," said the D