" Before them, in
an attitude of command, not to say menace, stood Radcliffe, brandishing
a carving-knife which, in his cruelly mischievous little hand, became a
weapon full of dangerous possibilities.
"Don't dare to budge, any one of you," he breathed masterfully to his
cowed regiment. "Get back there, you Shaw! An', Beetrice, if you don't
mind me, I'll carve your ear off. You better be afraid of me, all of
you, an' mind what I say, or I'll take this dagger, an' dag the life
out of you! You're all my servants--you're all my slaves! D'you hear
me!"
Evidently they did, and not one of them cared or dared to stir.
For a second Radcliffe faced them in silence, before beginning to march
Napoleonically back and forth, his savage young eye alert, his naughty
hand brandishing the knife threateningly. A second, and then, suddenly,
without warning, the scene changed, and Radcliffe was a squirming,
wriggling little boy, shorn of his power, grasped firmly in a grip from
which there was no chance of escape.
"Shame on you!" exclaimed Martha indignantly, addressing the spellbound
line, staring at her blankly.
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