For, though many in time wax brave to beard their Gratcher even in his lair, only the very wise learn this— that the best way to be rid of him is to laugh him away —that no Gratcher ever fashioned by the ingenuity of terror-loving humans can keep his evil power over one to whom he has become funny.
The passing of the Gratcher had left no pedestal crying for another idol. In its stead, for his own chastening and with all reverence, the little boy erected the spirit of that God which the Bible tells of, who is all-wise and loving, yet no sentimentalist, as witness his sudden devastations among the first-born of all things, from white rabbits to men.
But an idol next went down that not only left a wretched vacancy in the boy's pantheon, but fell against his heart and made an ugly wound. It was as if he had become suddenly clear-seeing on that day when the Gratcher shrivelled in the blast of his laugh.
A little later came the father on his annual visit, and the dire thing was done. The most ancient and honoured of all the idols fell with a crash. A perfect father was lost in some common, swaggering, loud-voiced, street-mannered creature, grotesquely self-satisfied, of a cheap, shabby smartness, who came flaunting those things he should not have flaunted, and proclaiming in every turn of his showy head his lack of those things without which the little boy now saw no one could be a gentleman.
He cried in his bed that night, after futile efforts to believe that some fearful change had been wrought in his father. But his memory of former visits was scrupulously photographic—phonographic even. He recalled from the past certain effects once keenly joyed in that now made his cheeks burn. The things rioted brutally before him, until it seemed that something inside of him strove to suppress them—as if a shamed hand reached out from his heart to brush the whole offense into decent hiding with one quick sweep.
This time he took care that Nancy should not meet his father. Yet he walked the streets with him as before—walking defiantly and with shame those streets through which he had once led the perfect father in festal parade, to receive the applause of a respectful populace. Now he went forth awkwardly, doggedly, keen for signs that others saw what he did, and quick to burn with bitter, unreasoning resentment, when he detected that they did so. Once his father rallied him upon his "grumpiness"; then he grew sullen—though trying to smile—thinking with mortification of his grandfather. He understood the old man now.
He was glad when the week came to an end. Bruised, bewildered, shamed, but loyal still and resentful toward others who might see as he did, he was glad when his father went—this time as Professor Alfiretti, doing a twenty-minute turn of hypnotism and mind-reading with the Gus Levy All-Star Shamrock Vaudeville, playing the "ten-twenty-thirties," whatever they were!