rstand the use of pretending to emotions
one has not. All this, however, comes later. Let me return now to my
fairy kitten.

I heard its cry of pain from afar, and instinctively hastened my steps.
Three or four times I heard it again, and at each call I ran faster,
till, breathless, I arrived upon the scene, the opening of a narrow
court, leading out of a by-street. At first I saw nothing but the backs
of a small mob of urchins. Then from the centre of them came another
wailing appeal for help, and without waiting for any invitation, I
pushed my way into the group.

What I saw was Hecuba to me--gave me the motive and the cue for passion,
transformed me from the dull and muddy-mettled little John-a-dreams I
had been into a small, blind Fury. Pale Thought, that mental emetic,
banished from my system, I became the healthy, unreasoning animal, and
acted as such.

From my methods, I frankly admit, science was absent. In simple,
primitive fashion that would have charmed a Darwinian disciple to
observe, I "went for" the whole crowd. To employ the expressive idiom of
the neighbourhood, I was "all over it and inside." Something clung about
my feet. By kicking myself free and then standing on it I gained the
advantage of quite an extra foot in height; I don't know what it was and
didn't care. I fought with my arms and I fought with my legs; where I
could get in with my head I did. I fought whatever came to hand in
a spirit of simple thankfulness, grateful for what I could reach and
indifferent to what was beyond me.

That the "show"--if again I may be permitted the local idiom--was not
entirely mine I was well aware. That not alone my person but my property
also was being damaged in the rear became dimly conveyed to me through
the sensation of draught. Already the world to the left of me was mere
picturesque perspective, while the growing importance of my nose was
threatening the absorption of all my other features. These things did
not trouble me. I merely noted them as phenomena and continued to punch
steadily.

Until I found that I was punching something soft and yet unyielding.
I looked up to see what this foreign matter that thus mysteriously had
entered into the mixture might be, and discovered it to be a policeman.
Still I did not care. The felon's dock! the prison cell! a fig for such
mere bogies. An impudent word, an insulting look, and I would have gone
for the Law itself. Pale Thought--it must have been a livid g