The Story of the Rock

"At mischief again, of course: always at it." Mrs Potter said this angrily, and with much emphasis, as she seized her son by the arm and dragged him out of a pool of dirty water, into which he had tumbled. "Always at mischief of one sort or another, he is," continued Mrs Potter, with increasing wrath, "morning, noon, and night-he is; tumblin' about an' smashin' things for ever he does; he'll break my heart at last-he will. There: take that!" "That," which poor little Tommy was desired to take, was a sounding box on the ear, accompanied by a violent shake of the arm which would have drawn that limb out of its socket if the child's bones and muscles had not been very tightly strung together.