ionate to his stature. He had a way of glaring
at you, too, if you happened to be a new boy at school, which was
sufficiently suggestive of a sanguinary temperament to overawe the
average youngster and to render quite unnecessary any more active
demonstration.

Like all despots who rule through fear, Curly had a following. It was
made up of lesser lights of like tastes and ambitions, who toadied to
and imitated the tyrant simply to avoid the unpleasant necessities which
the alternative involved. These followers, numbering some six or eight,
through their unity of aim and Curly's leadership, had gained a certain
ascendency over the far greater, but unorganized, body of would-be
independents who, chafe as they might under the yoke, dared not attempt
to throw it off; and these loyal retainers were zealous in service of
their lord's interests and pleasure.

On that beautiful fall morning when Bob first went alone to school, he
had not been ten minutes on the playground, standing upon its outer
edge, school-bag and lunch-box in hand, to gaze upon its novelties,
before a satellite of Curly's, one Percy Emery, espied him. Instantly it
was as though Percy had discovered some new quarry, unearthed a fresh
specimen of some genus, edible and choice.

"Hi, Curly," he yelled, with the eager loyalty of his kind, "come 'ere.
'Ere's a new one. Look at the school-bag to 'im."

Curly, who was at the moment engaged in the pleasing pastime of
hectoring a scared little five-year-old who ought still to have been in
the kindergarten, pricked up his ears at the cry and, like a hungry
bird of prey leaving a mouse for a lamb, promptly swooped down upon the
new game. His movement was the signal for the gathering of a crowd, and,
before Bob was fairly aware that he was the object of attention, he had
become the center of a curious group whose interest, if not wholly
hostile, was in the main certainly not friendly. The dictator himself
confronted him with unmistakably bellicose intentions.

"New shoes!" said Curly contemptuously, selecting the first obviously
vulnerable point open to a shaft of insult. "New shoes! Spit on 'em!" He
suited the action to the word, and immediately word and act alike were
imitated by two or three of his more ardent admirers.

"Stop!" said Bob. He did not know what it meant. He backed away from his
persecutors.

"Aw, stop, eh?" mocked Curly. "Who are _you_? What's yer name?"

"Bob McAllister."

"Bob! Bob-tail!