orth, blandly proffered it to me as I sat moodily
in the doorway dreaming of strange wild circuses under tropic skies.

Such a stale old dodge as this would hardly have taken me in at ordinary
moments. But Harold had reckoned rightly upon the disturbing effect of
ill-humour, and had guessed, perhaps, that I thirsted for comfort and
consolation, and would not criticise too closely the source from which
they came. Unthinkingly I grasped the golden fraud, which collapsed at
my touch, and squirted its contents into my eyes and over my collar,
till the nethermost parts of me were damp with the water that had run
down my neck. In an instant I had Harold down, and, with all the energy
of which I was capable, devoted myself to grinding his head into the
gravel; while he, realizing that the closure was applied, and that
the time for discussion or argument was past, sternly concentrated his
powers on kicking me in the stomach.

Some people can never allow events to work themselves out quietly. At
this juncture one of Them swooped down on the scene, pouring shrill,
misplaced abuse on both of us: on me for ill-treating my younger
brother, whereas it was distinctly I who was the injured and the
deceived; on him for the high offence of assault and battery on a clean
collar--a collar which I had myself deflowered and defaced, shortly
before, in sheer desperate ill-temper. Disgusted and defiant we fled in
different directions, rejoining each other later in the kitchen-garden;
and as we strolled along together, our short feud forgotten, Harold
observed, gloomily: "I should like to be a cave-man, like Uncle George
was tellin' us about: with a flint hatchet and no clothes, and live in a
cave and not know anybody!"

"And if anyone came to see us we didn't like," I joined in, catching on
to the points of the idea, "we'd hit him on the head with the hatchet
till he dropped down dead."

"And then," said Harold, warming up, "we'd drag him into the cave and
SKIN HIM!"

For a space we gloated silently over the fair scene our imaginations had
conjured up. It was BLOOD we felt the need of just then. We wanted no
luxuries, nothing dear-bought nor far-fetched. Just plain blood, and
nothing else, and plenty of it.

Blood, however, was not to be had. The time was out of joint, and we had
been born too late. So we went off to the greenhouse, crawled into the
heating arrangement underneath, and played at the dark and dirty and
unrestricted life o