f most stately correctness and, to
small boys and common men, a great and distant, if tiny, God--he may
be expected to resent it.

The Doctor did. Almost before he knew what he was doing, he struck the
sobbing, gasping child twice, and then endeavoured to remove him by
the ungentle application of the untrammelled foot, from the leg to
which, limpet-like, he clung.

To Dam the blows were welcome, soothing, reassuring. Let a hundred
Heads flog him with two hundred birch-rods, so they could keep him
from the Snake. What are mere blows?

Realizing quickly that something very unusual was in the air, the
worthy Doctor repented him of his haste and, with what dignity he
might, inquired between a bleat and a bellow:--

"What is the matter, my boy? Hush! Hush!"

"The Snake! The Snake!" shrieked Dam. "Save me! Save me! _It is under
my foot! It is moving ... moving ... moving out_," and clung the
tighter.

The good Doctor also moved with alacrity--but saw no snake. He was
exceedingly perturbed, between a hypothetical snake and an all too
actual lunatic boy.

Fortunately, "Stout" (so called because he was Porter), passing the
big doors without, was attracted by the screams.

Entering, he hastened to the side of the agitated Head, and, with some
difficulty, untied from that gentleman's leg, a small boy--but not
until the small boy had fainted....

When Dam regained consciousness he had a fit, recovered, and found
himself in the Head's study, and the object of the interested regard
of the Head, Messrs. Colfe and Steynker, the school medico, and the
porter.

It was agreed (while the boy fought for his sanity, bit his hand for
the reassuring pleasure of physical pain, and prayed for help to the
God in whom he had no reason to believe) that the case was "very
unusual, very curious, v-e-r-y interesting indeed". Being healthier
and stronger than at the time of previous attacks, Dam more or less
recovered before night and was not sent home. But he had fallen from
his place, and in the little republics of the dormitory and
class-room, he was a thing to shun, an outcast, a disgrace to the
noble race of Boy.

Not a mere liar, a common thief, a paltry murderer or vulgar
parricide--but a COWARD, a blubberer, a baby. Even Delorme, more in
sorrow than in anger, shunned his erstwhile bosom-pal, and went about
as one betrayed.

The name of "Funky Warren" was considered appropriate, and even the
Haddock, his own flesh and blood, an