until
it became subservient to my will. But of my fancy for those silent,
lifeless streets it cured me for the time. From behind their still walls
I would hear that long cry; down their narrow vistas see that writhing
figure, like some animated ginger-bread, hopping, springing, falling.

Yet in the more crowded streets another trouble awaited me, one more
tangible.

Have you ever noticed a pack of sparrows round some crumbs perchance
that you have thrown out from your window? Suddenly the rest of the
flock will set upon one. There is a tremendous Lilliputian hubbub,
a tossing of tiny wings and heads, a babel of shrill chirps. It is
comical.

"Spiteful little imps they are," you say to yourself, much amused.

So I have heard good-tempered men and women calling out to one another
with a laugh.

"There go those young devils chivvying that poor little beggar again;
ought to be ashamed of theirselves."

But, oh! the anguish of the poor little beggar! Can any one who has not
been through it imagine it! Reduced to its actualities, what was it?
Gibes and jeers that, after all, break no bones. A few pinches,
kicks and slaps; at worst a few hard knocks. But the dreading of it
beforehand! Terror lived in every street, hid, waiting for me, round
each corner. The half-dozen wrangling over their marbles--had they seen
me? The boy whistling as he stood staring into the print shop, would I
get past him without his noticing me; or would he, swinging round upon
his heel, raise the shrill whoop that brought them from every doorway to
hunt me?

The shame, when caught at last and cornered: the grinning face that
would stop to watch; the careless jokes of passers-by, regarding the
whole thing but as a sparrows' squabble: worst of all, perhaps, the rare
pity! The after humiliation when, finally released, I would dart away,
followed by shouted taunts and laughter; every eye turned to watch me,
shrinking by; my whole small carcass shaking with dry sobs of bitterness
and rage!

If only I could have turned and faced them! So far as the mere bearing
of pain was concerned, I knew myself brave. The physical suffering
resulting from any number of stand-up fights would have been trivial
compared with the mental agony I endured. That I, the comrade of a
hundred heroes--I, who nightly rode with Richard Coeur de Lion,
who against Sir Lancelot himself had couched a lance, and that not
altogether unsuccessful, I to whom all damsels in distress w