Torture
"I really do not know what to do with him," said the father. "He seems absolutely stupid."
"Poor boy!" said his mother, "I am afraid he is not well. He doesn't look in good health."
"But what's the matter with him? He eats well enough; he had two helpings of meat, and two of pudding to-day at dinner, and a quarter of an hour afterwards he was munching some sweet stuff. His appetite's all right, you see, anyhow."
"But he's very pale. He makes me feel anxious."
"And he makes me feel anxious. Look at this letter from Wells, the head master. Here you see he says: 'It seems almost impossible to get him to play games; he has had two or three thrashings, as I hear, for shirking cricket. And his form master gives me a very bad account of his work during the term, so that I fear the school is doing him little if any good.' And you see, Mary, it isn't as if he were a little boy; he was fifteen last April. It's getting serious, you know."
"What d'you think we had better do?"
"I wish I knew. Look at him here. He's only been home for a week, and you'd think he'd be in the best of spirits, enjoying himself with the squire's boys, and singing and racketing about all over the place. And you
