asion from the breeches was beyond the control of the
single brace. Besides, crawling on your stomach is dislocating even to
the most neatly secured attire. But his action was mechanical. His
thoughts were with his goddess. In his inarticulate mind he knew
himself to be her champion. He sped under her consecration. He knew he
could run. He could run like a young deer. Though despised, could he
not outrun any of the youth in Budge Street? He took his place in the
line of competing children. Far away in the grassy distance were two
men holding a stretched string. On one side of him was a tubby boy with
a freckled face and an amorphous nose on which the perspiration beaded;
on the other a lank, consumptive creature, in Eton collar and red tie
and a sprig of sweet William in his buttonhole, a very superior person.
Neither of them desired his propinquity. They tried to hustle him from
the line. But Paul, born Ishmael, had his hand against them. The fat
boy, smitten beneath the belt, doubled up in pain and the consumptive
person rubbed agonized shins. A curate, walking down repressing bulges
and levelling up concavities, ordained order. The line stood tense.
Away beyond, toward the goal, appeared a white mass, which Paul knew to
be the ladies in their summer dresses; and among them, though he could
not distinguish her, was she in whose eyes he was to win glory. The
prize did not matter. It was for her that he was running. In his
childish mind he felt passionately identified with her. He was her
champion.

The word was given. The urchins started. Paul, his little elbows
squared behind him and his eyes fixed vacantly in space, ran with his
soul in the toes that protruded through the ragged old boots. He knew
not who was in front or who was behind. It was the madness of battle.
He ran and ran, until somebody put his arms round him and stopped him.

"Steady on, my boy-steady on!"

Paul looked round in a dazed way. "Have A' won th' race?"

"I'm afraid not, my lad."

With a great effort he screwed his mind to another question. "Wheer did
A' coom in?"

"About sixth, but you ran awfully well."

Sixth! He had come in sixth! Sky and grass and trees and white mass of
ladies (among whom was the goddess) and unconsiderable men and boys
became a shimmering blur. He seemed to stagger away, stagger miles
away, until, finding himself quite alone, he threw himself down under a
beech tree, and, after a few moments' vivid realization of