pain well. He had been operated
upon for faulty tendons when he was five and proved a Spartan patient.
He stood now waiting for Mr. Baggs. Other victims had reported that it
was Levi's custom to use a strap from his own waist when he beat a boy,
and Abel, even at this tense moment, wondered whether he would now do
so.

"It's you, is it?" said Mr. Baggs. "And the Red Hand has been here, has
it? And perhaps the red something else will go away from here. You're a
darned young thief--that's what you are."

"I ain't yet," argued Abel. His voice fluttered, for his heart was
beating very fast.

"You're as good, however, for you was going to take my strick. The will
was there, though I prevented the deed."

"I had to show the Band as I'd been here."

"Why did you come? What sense is there to it?"

Abel regarded Mr. Baggs doubtfully and did not reply.

"Just to show you're a bit out of the common, perhaps?"

Abel clutched at the suggestion. His eyes looked sideways slyly at Mr.
Baggs. The ogre seemed inclined to talk, and through speech might come
salvation, for he had acted rather than talked on previous occasions.

"We want to be different from common boys," said the marauder.

"Well, you are, for one, and there's no need to trouble in your case.
You was born different, and different you've got to be. I suppose you've
been told often enough who your father is?"

"Yes, I have."

"Small wonder then that you've got your knife into the world at large, I
reckon. What thinking man, or boy, has not for that matter? So you're up
against the laws and out for the liberties? Well, I don't quarrel with
that. Only you're too young yet to understand what a lot you've got to
grumble at. Some day you will."

Abel said nothing. He hardly listened, and thought far less of what Mr.
Baggs was saying than of what he himself would say to his companions
after this great adventure. To make friends with the ogre was no mean
feat, even for a member of the Red Hand.

What motiveless malignity actuated Levi Baggs meanwhile, who can say? He
was now a man in sight of seventy, yet his crabbed soul would exude gall
under pressure as of yore. None was ever cheered or heartened by
anything he might say; but to cast a neighbour down, or make a confident
and contented man doubtful and discontented, affected Mr. Baggs
favourably and rendered him as cheerful as his chronic pessimism ever
permitted him to be.

He bade the child sit and gave him h