 Which word best describes William?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction December 1959. For punishment, he locked me in a windowless room and told me to sit still until he came back. Being four or five, I didn't know any better, so I thought Dad made it dark to add to my punishment. My mother and father must have been glad when I was sent away to reform school after my thirteenth birthday party, the one If you believe any of this at all, you'll see why it couldn't be me who did the stealing. Partridge didn't seem to notice me, but I knew that was an act. "Brothers, this being Thanksgiving, I pray the good Lord that we all are truly thankful for all that we have received. Some skin-and-bones character I didn't know struggled out of his seat, amening. As soon as I got cleaned up, I was going to have dinner in a good restaurant, and I was going to order such expensive food and leave such a large tip for the waiter and send one to the chef that they were going to think I was rich, and some executive with some brokerage firm would see me and say to himself, "Hmm, executive material. I beg your pardon, sir—" just like the razor-blade comic-strip ads in the old magazines that Frankie the Pig sells three for a quarter. Even Partridge made his way down from the auctioneer's stand like a vulture with a busted wing and darted through his private door. Following the wallboard, I went down the side of the room and behind the last row of chairs, closer, closer, and halfway up the room again to the entrance—the entrance and the little wooden box fastened to the wall beside it. The box was fastened to the vertical tongue-and-groove laths of the woodwork, not the wall. It wouldn't go up, down, left or right. While keeping a lookout for Partridge and somebody stepping out of the kitchen for a pull on a bottle, I spotted the clock for the first time, a Western Union clock high up at the back of the hall. "This," Brother Partridge said, "is one of the most profound experiences of my life." My head hinged until it lined my eyes up with Brother Partridge. "William Hagle." William, you are being punished for some great sin.
 troubled
 careful  manipulative  innocent  troubled