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 rubbing the shaven avenue between his side-whiskers as he spoke.

“How is Dave Wilkins making out with that boy?” he asked.

“Angus is moving ahead—stepping up toward the mental average. When you think what he was when Dave took hold of him, his progress has been startling.”

“Is he difficult to control?”

Browning’s surprise at this was manifest on his face. “It's the other way around,” he said. “It’s pathetic—the doglike way he follows Wilkins around, and the delight he shows when Dave makes a request of him. He worships Dave.”

“He has vicious outbreaks of temper.” Mr. Woodhouse stated this as an accepted fact.

“Mr. Woodhouse, you have been misinformed. I don’t believe the boy has a temper. Any such thing seems to have been destroyed in him. He was completely cowed, numbed when he came to us. The shock of that night—”

“Yes, yes…. But twice he has attacked other boys—once a whole group, and the other day he beat young Malcolm Crane unmercifully.”

It was apparent to Browning who Henry G.’s informant had been. Indeed, it was a matter of common knowledge that Crane had gone up and down in public places threatening dire things against Angus, and Wilkins had been alarmed