ne after another. The first lunged out heavily;
Grenfell parried the blow with his right hand and landed his left on
the jaw. The ruffian fell to the floor like a log of wood and lay
there. As he fell, he clutched at the corner of the table and
overturned it with a mighty crash on top of him.

The second man got a blow on the nose that sent him over to the corner
to wipe away the blood. The rest Grenfell laid out flat on the floor
in one, two, three order.

They came at him again, those who were able to go on. They got their
arms around him but he threw them off. They kicked him and he knocked
them down again. They bit and clawed and scratched and used all the
foul tactics that they knew.

They tried to get him from both sides--they rushed at him from the
front and the rear at the same time.

Agile as a cat he turned and faced them whichever way they came, and
those quick, hard fists of his shot out and hit them on the chin or on
the nose till they bled like stuck pigs and bawled for mercy.

Grenfell stood there amid the wrecked furniture, his clothes torn,
bleeding and triumphant. "Want any more?" he smiled.

When they saw that all combined they were no match for this wildcat
they had roused to action, they said:

"Well, le's call it quits. Le's have peace."

They never tackled him again. They didn't know much, to be sure, but
they knew when they had had enough of "a first-class fighting man."

Then Grenfell started camping-parties with poor boys who hadn't any
money to spend for holidays. The first summer he had thirteen at the
seashore.

A boy had to take a sea-bath before he got his breakfast. No one could
go in a boat unless he could swim. The beds were hay-stuffed burlap
bags. A lifeboat retired from service was more fun than Noah's Ark to
keep the happy company afloat for a fishing-party or a picnic.

Next year there were thirty boys: then the number grew to a hundred,
and more. Not one life was lost. How they loved it all! Especially
when the boat, twelve boys at the oars, came plunging in, on the
returning tide, with the boys all singing at the top of their voices:

"Here we come rejoicing,
Pulling at the sweeps"

to the rhythmic tune of "Bringing in the Sheaves." Then, when the
boat's keel slid into the sand, it was a mad rush for the best supper
boys ever ate.

His school days over, instead of going to Oxford University, Grenfell
chose to enter the London Hospital, so as to take his