inful one,
so painful that he never quite forgot it. His nose, too, was never so
straight again. It was soon over, though to one of the parties time
went with unnatural slowness.

"Well, I think you've had about enough for once," soliloquized Philip,
as he critically surveyed the writhing mass on the ground before him;
and he looked a very handsome lad as he said it.

His curly black hair hung in waving confusion over his forehead, and
flung changing lights and shadows into the depths of his brown eyes,
whilst his massive and somewhat heavy features were touched into a
more active life by the light of that pleasing excitement which
animates nine men out of every ten of the Anglo-Saxon race when they
are engaged on killing or hurting some other living creature. The
face, too, had a certain dignity about it, a little of the dignity of
justice; it was the face of one who feels that if his action has been
precipitate and severe, it has at any rate been virtuous. The full but
clear-cut lips also had their own expression on them, half serious,
half comical; humour, contempt, and even pity were blended in it.
Altogether Philip Caresfoot's appearance in the moment of boyish
vengeance was pleasing and not uninteresting.

Presently, however, something of the same change passed over his face
that we see in the sky when a cloud passes over the sun; the light
faded out of it. It was astonishing to note how dull and heavy--ay,
more, how bad it made him look all in a breath.

"There will be a pretty business about this," he murmured, and then,
administering a sharp kick to the prostrate and groaning form on the
ground before him, he said, "Now, then, get up; I'm not going to touch
you again. Perhaps, though, you won't be in quite such a hurry to tell
lies about me another time, though I suppose that one must always
expect a certain amount of lying from a half-bred beggar like you.
Like mother, like son, you know."

This last sentence was accompanied by a bitter laugh, and produced a
decided effect on the grovelling George, who slowly raised himself
upon his hands, and, lifting his head, looked his cousin full in the
face.

It was not the ghastly appearance of his mangled and blood-soaked
countenance that made Philip recoil so sharply from the sight of his
own handiwork--he had fought too often at school to be chicken-hearted
about a little bloodshed; and, besides, he knew that his cousin was
only knocked about, not really inju