be hell to pay."

To Gow Johnson the play had instantly become real, and O'Ryan an injured
man at bay, the victim of the act--not of the fictitious characters of the
play, but of the three men, Fergus, Holden, and Constantine Jopp, who had
planned the discomfiture of O'Ryan; and he felt that the victim's
resentment would fall heaviest on Constantine Jopp, the bully, an old
schoolmate of Terry's.

Jopp was older than O'Ryan by three years, which in men is little, but in
boys, at a certain time of life, is much. It means, generally, weight and
height, an advantage in a scrimmage. Constantine Jopp had been the plague
and tyrant of O'Ryan's boyhood. He was now a big, leering fellow, with
much money of his own, got chiefly from the coal discovered on his place
by Vigon, the half-breed French-Canadian. He had a sense of dark and
malicious humor, a long, horse-like face, with little, beady eyes, and a
huge frame.

Again and again had Terry fought him as a boy at school, and often he had
been badly whipped, but he had never refused the challenge of an insult
when he was twelve and Jopp fifteen. The climax to their enmity at school
had come one day when Terry was seized with a cramp while bathing, and
after having gone down twice was rescued by Jopp, who dragged him out by
the hair of the head. He had been restored to consciousness on the bank
and carried to his home, where he lay ill for days. During the course of
the slight fever which followed the accident his hair was cut close to his
head. Impetuous always, his first thought was to go and thank Constantine
Jopp for having saved his life. As soon as he was able he went forth to
find his rescuer, and met him suddenly on turning a corner of the street.
Before he could stammer out the gratitude that was in his heart, Jopp,
eying him with a sneering smile, said, drawlingly:

"If you'd had your hair cut like that I couldn't have got you out, could
I? Holy, what a sight! Next time I'll take you by the scruff, putty
face--bah!"

That was enough for Terry. He had swallowed the insult, stuttered his
thanks to the jeering laugh of the lank bully, and had gone home and cried
in shame and rage.

It was the one real shadow in his life. Ill-luck and good luck had been
taken with an equable mind; but the fact that he must, while he lived, own
the supreme debt of his life to a boy and afterward to a man whom he hated
by instinct was a constant cloud on him. Jopp owned him. For some y