e of his favorite forms of sport to seize the child by
the collar and breeches and, swinging him high over head, hold him there
in an anguish of suspense, awaiting the threatened drop. It is to be
confessed that Sam was not entirely without provocation at the hands
of little Steve, for the lad had a truly uncanny cunning hidden in
his pencil, by means of which Sam was held up in caricature to the
surreptitious joy of his schoolmates. Sam's departure from school
deprived him of the full opportunity he formerly enjoyed of indulging
himself in his favourite sport. On this account he took the more eager
advantage of any opportunity that offered still to gratify his taste in
this direction.

Sauntering sullenly homeward from his interview with the boss and with
his temper rasped to a raw edge by his father's wrathful comments upon
his "dommed waggin' tongue," he welcomed with quite unusual eagerness
the opportunity for indulging himself in his pastime of baiting Humpy
Wicksy whom he overtook on his way home from school during the noon
intermission.

"Hello, Humpy," he roared at the lad.

Like a frightened rabbit Steve scurried down a lane, Sam whooping after
him.

"Come back, you little beast. Do you hear me? I'll learn you to come
when you're called," he shouted, catching the terrified lad and heaving
him aloft in his usual double-handed grip.

"Let me down, you! Leave me alone now," shrieked the boy, squirming,
scratching, biting like an infuriated cat.

"Bite, would you?" said Sam, flinging the boy down. "Now then," catching
him by the legs and turning him over on his stomach, "we'll make a
wheelbarrow of you. Gee up, Buck! Want a ride, boys?" he shouted to his
admiring gallery of toadies. "All aboard!"

While the unhappy Steve, shrieking prayers and curses, was struggling
vainly to extricate himself from the hands gripping his ankles, Annette
Perrotte, stepping smartly along the street on her way from the box
factory, came past the entrance to the lane. By her side strode a
broad-shouldered, upstanding youth. Arrested by Steve's outcries and
curses she paused.

"What are those boys at, I wonder?" she said. "There's that big lout of
a Wigglesworth boy. He's up to no good, I bet you."

"Oh, a kids' row of some kind or ither, a doot," said the youth. "Come
along."

"He's hurting someone," said Annette, starting down the lane. "What? I
believe it's that poor child, Steve Wickes." Like a wrathful fury she
dashed