Confused and frightened, I ran past houses and people and soon got ahead of the most advanced of the college boys. When I got in front of the Hospital, I saw two old men breathing a little fresh air at the door; as I passed them, one gave the other a slap on the back and cried out, “Hullo, look at Azor!” and I heard them bursting out into peals of laughter.
At the corner of one of the streets I had to pass by, there was a large grocer’s shop; one of the shop-boys was standing close to the pavement grinding coffee. As soon as I passed, the coffee-mill stopped and I heard the boy calling to the others, inside the shop, to come and look at “Azor!”
“HULLO, LOOK AT AZOR!”
The work people, coming out of the manufactory to their dinners, began to bark at me, and hiss as if they were setting two dogs to fight.
At last, to my joy, I saw our house: I was safe! But no, not yet: my hands trembled so that I could not turn the handle of the door: my nervous stamping attracted the attention of a painter who was painting a signboard in front of a restaurant near. The moment he saw me, he left off whistling a popular air, and, coming towards me, held his paint-brush horizontally about two feet from the ground, and promised “Azor, good Azor,” a piece of sugar if he would jump over it nicely.
I rushed into the house and threw myself upon a chair, panting for breath.
XXXV.
THE THEORY OF SELF-DEFENCE.
“Has anyone hurt you?” anxiously inquired my mother.