s shake in their shoes before him.
But a gentleman--a man (or boy) of honour, kindliness, modesty, and
sense--could no more be a bully than black could be white.

Bullying is essentially vulgar, and stamps the person who indulges in it
as ill-conditioned and stupid. He tries to pass off his lack of brains
with bluster, and to make up by tyranny for the contempt which his ill-
bred manners would naturally secure for him. But he deceives nobody but
himself. The youngsters tremble before him; but they despise him; in a
year or two they will laugh at him, and after that--thrash him.

Yes; I am sorry to counsel that physic for anybody, but really it is the
only one which can possibly cure the bully. The time must come when the
little boy will find himself grown up and possessed of a muscle, and
then the bully will find, to his astonishment, that he has tried his art
once too often.

So it was with Bob Bangs. He found himself on his back one day with a
small army of youngsters executing a war dance round him. He got
roughly used, poor fellow, and at last changed his tune from threats to
whines, and eventually, with the aid of a few parting kicks, was
permitted to depart in peace. And he never tried on bullying with us
again, except indeed when he was fortunate enough to get hold of one of
us singly in a lonely comer. And even then he generally heard of it
afterwards.

But, boys, mind this. There's nothing more likely than that in your
struggle for independence you will, if victorious, be tempted to become
bullies yourselves. In your anxiety to "pay out" your old enemy, you
may forget that you are yourselves falling into the very transgression
for which you have chastised him. That would be sad indeed. A boy that
can bear malice, and refuse quarter to a fallen foe, is very little
different from a bully himself.

Rather be careful to show yourselves Christians and gentlemen, even in
the way you rid yourselves of bullies. It is one thing, in self-
defence, to right yourself, and it is another to return evil for evil.
The best revenge you can have is, instead of dancing on his prostrate
body, to set him an example of forbearance and self-control in your own
conduct, which shall point him out a surer road to respect and authority
than all the bullying in the world could ever give him.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

WILLIAM THE ATHELING; OR, THE WRECK OF THE "WHITE SHIP."

The eager crowd thronged the little Norman s