The point was all innocently driven in
later by the Sunday-school mistress. William's family had no real
faith in the Sunday-school as a corrective to William's inherent
wickedness, but they knew that no Sabbath peace or calm was humanly
possible while William was in the house. So they brushed and cleaned
and tidied him at 2.45 and sent him, pained and protesting, down the
road every Sunday afternoon. Their only regret was that Sunday-school
did not begin earlier and end later.
Fortunately for William, most of his friends' parents were inspired by
the same zeal, so that he met his old cronies of the week-days--Henry,
Ginger, Douglas and all the rest--and together they beguiled the monotony
of the Sabbath.
But this Sunday the tall, pale lady who, for her sins, essayed to lead
William and his friends along the straight and narrow path of virtue,
was almost inspired. She was like some prophetess of old. She was so
emphatic that the red cherries that hung coquettishly over the edge of
her hat rattled against it as though in applause.
"We must all _start afresh_," she said. "We must all be
_turned_--that's what _conversion_ means."
William's fascinated eye wandered from the cherries to the distant
view out of the window. He thought suddenly of the noble burglar who
had turned his back upon the mysterious, nefarious tools of his trade
and now dispensed margarine to his former victims.
Opposite him sat a small girl in a pink and white checked frock.
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