was--the "circus"; and the pretty game was ordinarily arranged for
several victims. But Ivan was accorded a distinction, inasmuch as the
boys of his form positively refused to soil themselves by contact with a
rank outsider; and the upper school could not but condone its inferiors
in their aristocratic aloofness. Having, then, but one victim for the
evening's sport, it was thought fitting that some unusual climax should
be invented for the furtherance of the school ideals. And this touch was
finally invented by a youth who had just finished a certain forbidden
book relating to some unspeakable customs of the Orient.

Ivan's Sunday evening shall know no record here. He bore it, lived
through it--even infuriated his tormentors by his insistent refusals to
cry out or beg for mercy: choosing, instead, meanly to faint just before
the crucial moment. But though it was a week before he crept shakily
from his bed again, there was no inquiry in the school as to the cause
of his peculiar illness. Only in secret was some notice taken of the
affair; which had really gone beyond ordinary bounds. Colonel Becker
gave Ivan more than one hour of serious consideration; for to him Ivan's
father was more than a name. And, in the end, the boy was granted what
his mother had hitherto vainly asked: leave to spend thirty-six hours,
weekly--from Saturday night to Monday morning--at home, in his mother's
company. It was a wise decision, and it served a double purpose; for not
only did it remove a sure victim from the band of savages that held
possession of the school through every weekly holiday, but it gave one
miserable boy just enough respite from his wretchedness to stifle the
revelations which time and suffering would otherwise have surely
brought. Even so, at first, Becker trembled lest the terrible Chief
should be made aware of his son's treatment at that noted school. But
weeks passed and no complaint was made. And thus came Ivan's first step
towards favor. For Becker could not but be thankful for the boy's brave
silence; nor thereafter did he always try to hide that gratitude from
the unhappiest of his pupils.

* * * * *

Such was the beginning of Ivan's school life. It had taken just seven
days to teach him that the curse of his parentage must still be his
heavy burden. He had done infinitely more than was generally required to
prove a boy's worthiness for acceptance by his fellows. Not a boy in the
sc