William in Trouble by Richmal Crompton

doesn’t know how to do the right thing. And the very idea of that turned him hot and cold. Dante and Beatrice – the
two cases were curiously alike, only Dante’s love for Beatrice was a pale and commonplace thing compared with his love for the beautiful unknown. Perhaps if they got really friendly
this afternoon, he’d just murmur, ‘Beatrice!’ to her, and perhaps she’d understand.
    A small child in gum-boots, macintosh and sou’wester was coming down the road. She seemed to be looking about her expectantly. She was rather an engaging-looking child. The young man
smiled at her.
    The young man liked children, chiefly because he had not met many. The little girl looked up at him with a confiding smile. The young man slowed down. The church clock struck half-past three,
and the Vicarage was only a few minutes’ walk away. Oh, most decidedly too early to go out to tea anywhere as yet.
    ‘Hello,’ said the little girl with a bright smile.
    ‘Hello,’ he replied.
    He’d while away a few minutes with this friendly child. In about ten minutes he might go on walking very slowly. Quarter-to-four would be all right.
    ‘Pleath thit on the thtile with me,’ said the little girl.
    He was rather flattered. There must be something about him that appealed to children, and everyone said that children were good judges of character. He wished that she could see this
little child turning to him with such flattering friendliness and confidence.
    ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s.’
    The stile was very wet but they both wore macintoshes. They perched there side by side in the rain.
    The child did not speak. The young man felt that he ought to say something. He’d always had a vague idea that he was ‘good with children’ though he’d as yet met few
children to try it on. He felt that this silence didn’t do him credit.
    ‘It’s very wet today, isn’t it?’ he said brightly.
    ‘Yeth,’ said the child simply.
    It had not been, he felt, a happy remark. It was the sort of remark that anyone might have made to anyone. It was not a remark that if she had overheard it would have riveted her
attention on to him and remained for ever in her heart, a precious memory. With vague recollections of Helen’s Babies in his mind, he took out his watch.
    ‘Would you like to see the wheels go round?’ he said.
    He could not help having an uneasy suspicion that though slightly better than ‘It’s a very wet day, isn’t it?’ still it lacked originality. The bright child, however,
said, ‘Yeth, pleath,’ and seemed quite pleased. Perhaps it had not read Helen’s Babies.
    He took out his watch and opened the back of it.
    ‘The wheelth aren’t going round,’ said the child dispassionately.
    He made an exclamation of annoyance. Of course – he forgot he’d broken the mainspring of the beastly thing last night. He put it back in his pocket.
    ‘Thow me your money,’ said the child imperiously.
    The young man obligingly took out his pocket-book. He was rather glad of the excuse. It was quite five minutes since he had looked at the most engaging snapshot of her –
three-quarter back view, just as she was turning out of her garden gate into the road. He looked at it now.
    ‘There’s my money,’ he said kindly, ‘these are one-pound notes, and these are ten-shilling notes, and this is a five-pound note, and these,’ blushing, ‘are
photographs of a most beautiful—’
    He grabbed at the stile, nearly overbalancing. The small child had seized his pocket-book and was already disappearing round the bend of the road. Hastily reconstructing his ideas of innocent
childhood, the young man followed in swift pursuit.
    He caught her up at the end of the road and held her arm.
    ‘Give me that back,’ he said sternly.
    She uttered a scream that turned the young man’s blood cold. Then she stopped screaming and said quite composedly:
    ‘I’ll thcream again if you don’t let go’f my arm!’
    Broken in spirit by