And he’ll make you crazy.
“An S and an S, and a T and a T,
And a stam and a stutter, and don’t you see—”
The boy got no further. His song was so malicious, his manner so exquisitely provoking, that young Titus, without waiting for a single preliminary, flew upon him like a whirlwind.
Provoker and the provoked one rolled over and over in the middle of the street. It was a rainy, muddy morning in the late summer, and in their dark suits and bedaubed condition they soon had very much the appearance of two dogs.
So thought a young man who was driving a fast horse and talking to a lively young girl by his side. One careless glance he gave the supposed dogs; then, thinking that they would get out of the way, he scarcely took pains to avoid them.
Needless to say, the dogs made no effort to avoid him. On the contrary, they rolled right in his path. One terrified shriek he heard from Titus’s opponent, then there was silence.
The horrified young man sprang from his buggy. One boy was not hurt, he was only frightened. The other lay with his dark young face turned up to the sky. There was blood on his hands and his forehead. The horse’s hoofs had struck him, and the wheels of the buggy had gone over his legs.
The young man did not lose his head. He asked the uninjured lad for Titus’s name and address, he put him in the buggy, and requesting a bystander to notify the Judge he drove rapidly to a hospital, his girl friend tenderly holding Titus’s injured head.
The succession of troubles that Judge Sancroft had had during his life had all been of a deliberate kind. His wife and children had all had long illnesses, and much suffering, so much so that death had come as a welcome release. He did not remember anything just as sudden as this, and his chastened and subdued heart died within him. He feared that he was going to lose his last treasure.