In delicate schoolboy slang, I was a new-bug—a thing to be poked and despised, and not to be spoken to for the first few days. There were other new-bugs, which was some consolation; but we were too shy to get acquainted. We moped about the playground sullen and solitary, like crows on a plowed field. Every now and then some privileged person, who was not a new-bug, would bang our shins with a hockey-stick; after which we would hop about on one leg for a time, looking more like crows than ever.

The Snow Lady had packed fifty oranges in my box. I made holes in the tops of them with my thumb and rammed in lumps of sugar, sucking out the juice. Not because I was greedy, but because there seemed nothing else to do, I ate every one of the fifty the first day. The following night I was ill, which did not help my popularity. One dark-haired person, about my own age, with a jolly freckled face, took particular offense at my misdemeanor. His real name was Buzzard, but he was nicknamed the Bantam because of his size and his temper. He never said a word about the oranges, but he punished me for having been ill by stamping on my toes. He did this whenever he passed me, looking in the opposite direction in an absent-minded fashion. My quietness in putting up with him seemed to irritate him.

The afternoon was frosty; I was hobbling miserably about the playground with Ruthita’s muffler round my throat. It was a delicate baby-pink, and the Bantam easily caught sight of it. He came up and jerking it from me, trod on it. I had never fought in my life, but my wretchedness made me reckless. I thought of little Ruthita and the long cold hours she had spent in making it. It seemed that he had insulted her. I hit him savagely on the nose.

Immediately there were cries of, “A fight! A fight!” Games were stopped. Boys came running from every direction. Even the new-bugs lifted up their heads and began to take an interest in the landscape.

“Now you’ve done it,” the Bantam shouted.

He started out, accompanied by the crowd to the bottom of the playground. I followed. The laboratory, a long black shed, stood there, with a roof of galvanized iron and rows of bottles arranged in the windows. Behind it we were out of sight of masters, unless they happened to be carrying on experiments inside.

A ring was formed. The Bantam commenced to take off his coat and collar. I did likewise. A horrid sickening sense of defenselessness came over me. I experienced what the early Christians must have felt when they gazed round the eager amphitheatre, and heard the lions roaring.

A big fellow stepped up. “Here, new-bug, d’you know how to fight?”

When I shook my head, he grinned at me cheerfully. “Hold your arms well up, double your fists, and go for him.”

The advice was more easy to give than to put into action. The Bantam was on top of me in a flash. He made for my face at first, but I lowered my head and kept my arms up, so he was content to pummel me about the body. He hurt, and hurt badly; I had never been treated so roughly.

Something happened. Perhaps it was a fierce realization of the injustice of everything—the injustice of being sent there by people whom I loved, the injustice of not being spoken to, the injustice of the boys jeering because I was getting thrashed. I felt that I did not care how much I got damaged if only I might kill the Bantam. He thumped me on the nose as I looked up; my eyes filled with tears. I dashed in at him, banging him about the head. I heard his teeth rattle. I heard the shouting, “Hurrah! Go it, new-bug. Well done, new-bug.” In front of me the wintry sunset lay red. I remember wondering whether it was sunset or blood. Then the Bantam tried to turn and run. I caught him behind the ear. He tripped up and fell. I stood over him, doubtful whether he were dead. Just then the door of the laboratory opened. The boys began to scatter, shouting to one another, “The Creature! Here he comes. The Creature!” The Bantam picked himself up and followed the crowd.

A man came round the side of the shed. He looked something like Dot-and-Carry-One, only he was smaller. His hair was the color of a badger’s, shaggy and unbrushed. His face was stubbly and besmirched with different colored chalks from his fingers. His clothes were stained and baggy. He approached sideways, crabwise, in a great hurry, with one hand stretched out behind and one in front, like flappers. His gestures were those of a servant in a Chinese etching; they made him absurdly conspicuous by their self-belittlement. Beyond everything, he was dirty.

“What they been beating you for?” he inquired in his shorthand way of talking. “You hit him first! What for?” He pulled a stump of a pencil out of his mouth as though he were drawing a tooth. After that I could hear him more clearly. “A muffler? He trod on it? Well, that’s nothing to fight about. Oh, your sister gave it you? That’s different.”

The last two sentences were spoken very gently—quite unlike the rest, which had been angry. “Humph! His sister gave it him!”

He took me by the hand and led me into the shed, closing the door behind him. An iron stove was burning. The outside was red hot; it glowered through the dusk. Running round the sides of the room were taps and basins, and above them bottles. Ranged on the table in the middle were stands, bunsen-burners and retorts. He went silently about his work. He was melting sulphur in a crucible.

Every now and then the sulphur caught and burnt with a violet flame; and all the while it made a suffocating smell.

I felt scared. I didn’t know what he was going to do with me. The boys had called him The Creature, which sounded very dreadful. He had dragged me into his den just like the ogres the Snow Lady read about.

Presently his experiment ended. He gave me a seat by the stove, and came and sat beside me. He didn’t look at all fierce now. He struck me as old and discouraged.

“Always fight for your sister,” he said. Then after a pause, “What’s she called?”

I found myself telling him that she wasn’t really my sister, that her name was Ruthita, and that she had knitted me the muffler. He patted me on the knee as I talked. He might almost have been The Spuffler.

“Boys are horrid beasts,” he said. “They don’t mean to be unkind. They, don’t think—that’s all. Soon you’ll be one of them.”

He led the way out of the laboratory, turning the key behind him. The bell in the tower was ringing for supper. The school was a............