owing that now Christine had heard everything, the very worst.
Probably Mr. Ricardo had come to tell her that she must take him away,
that he was too bad and too stupid to be with other boys, and a lump
gathered in his throat because he would never see Rufus Cosgrave again:
never fight for him.

Mr. Ricardo halted, peering through the dusk.

"That you, Stonehouse?"

"Yes"--he added painfully, because the little man had been kind to
him--"sir."

"Your--Miss Forsyth is getting anxious about you. Why are you so late?"

Robert muttered "Football," knowing it was a lie, and that somehow or
other his companion knew it too. He heard Mr. Ricardo sigh deeply and
wearily.

"Well, I'm very late myself. I don't know this neighbourhood. Is
there a station or a 'bus near here?"

"There's a 'bus." Robert pointed eagerly. "I'll show you if you like."

"Thanks--if it doesn't take you too long."

They walked side by side in silence, Mr. Ricardo's stick tapping
smartly on the pavement, he himself apparently deep in thought. It
seemed to Robert that he had escaped, until suddenly a thin hand took
him by the shoulder and shook him with a friendly impatience.

"Football. Nonsense. A boy like you doesn't play football. He hasn't
had the chance. Besides, it's not his line. He plays a lone game.
No. You've been moping round--crying possibly. Well, I do that myself
sometimes. It's a crying business, unless you've got nerves and guts.
But you've got that all right. I saw you fight that stupid bully
Saunders from my window, and you beat him, too. I was fighting with
you, though you didn't know it. It was I who kicked him that time you
caught him on the shin."

Robert would have laughed had he been less miserable, and had he not
caught beneath Mr. Ricardo's brief amusement a real and angry
satisfaction. In the dark, too, he had an uneasy feeling that after
all he was going to be found out.

"And then after you'd stood up to and beaten a fellow twice your size
you went away by yourself and howled. Shall I tell you why? You'll be
astonished. Probably you won't understand in the least. You cried
because you're a young idiot. You find yourself in a herd of
half-baked living creatures, and you see that they are wearing chains
round their ankles and rings through their noses so that they can't
move or breathe properly, and you think to yourself that that's the
proper thing, and you come crying home for someone to tie