"
If Miss Christie had not found plenty to do during the next six weeks,
she would have grumbled yet more than she did over her wrongs. As it
was, Master Augustus John Mortimer came home from school for his long
holidays, and he and his friends excited more noise, bustle, and
commotion in the house than all the other children put together.
John Mortimer's eldest son, always called Johnnie, to distinguish him
from his father, was ridiculously big for his age, portentously clever
and keen-witted, awkward, blunt, rude, full of fun, extremely fond of
his father, and exceedingly unlike him in person. His hair was nearly
black, his forehead was square and high, his hands and feet almost
rivalled those of his parent in size, and his height was five feet
three.
In any other eyes than those of a fond parent he must have appeared as
an awkward, noisy, plain, and intolerably active boy; but his father
(who almost from his infancy had pleased himself with a mental picture
of the manner of man he would probably grow into) saw nothing of all
this, but merely added in his mind two inches to the height of the
future companion he was to find in him, and wished that the boy could
get over a lisp which still disfigured some of his words.
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