" asked Dam meekly, as he
measured the other with his eye, noted his puffiness, short reach, and
inward tendency of knee.

"Oh! lots of ways," was the reply. "Dry shaves, tweaks, scalpers,
twisters, choko, tappers, digs, benders, shinners, windos, all sorts."

"I don't even know what they are," moaned Dam.

"Poor Kid!" sympathized the bully, "you soon will, though. Dry shaves
are beautiful. You die dotty in about five minutes if I don't see fit
to stop. Twisters break your wrists and you yell the roof off--or
would do if I didn't gag you first with a cake of soap and a towel.
Tappers are very amusing, too, for me that is--not for you. They are
done on the side of your knee with a cricket stump. Wonderful how kids
howl when you understand knee-treatment. Choko is good too. Makes you
black in the face and your eyes goggle out awful funny. Done with a
silk handkerchief and a stick. Windos and benders go together and
really want two fellows to do it properly. I hit you in the wind and
you double up, and the other fellow un-doubles you from behind--with a
cane--so that I can double you up again. Laugh! I nearly died over
young Berners. Shinners, scalpers, and tweaks are good too--jolly
good!... but of course all this comes after lamming and tunding....
Come along with me...."

"Nit," was Dam's firm but gentle reply, and a little pulse began to
beat beneath his cheek bone.

"Oh! Ho!" smiled Master Harberth, "then I'll _begin_ here, and when
you're broke and blubbing you'll come with me--and get just double for
a start."

Dam's spirits rose and he felt almost happy--certainly far better than
he had done since the hapless encounter with the bottled adder and his
fall from grace. It was a positive, _joy_ to have an enemy he could
tackle, a real flesh-and-blood foe and tormentor that came upon him in
broad daylight and in mere human form.

After countless thousands of centuries of awful nightmare
struggling--in which he was bound hand-and-foot and doomed to failure
and torture from the outset, the sport, plaything, and victim of a
fearful, intangible Horror--this would be sheer amusement and
recreation. What could mere man do to _him_, much less mere boy! Why,
the most awful torture-chamber of the Holy Inquisition of old was a
pleasant recreation-room compared with _any_ place where the Snake
could enter.

Oh, if the Snake could only be met and fought in the open with free
hands and untrammelled limbs, as Bully Harbert