"Give it 'em strong!"
Albert, with a bewildered cry of "Oh, 'elp!" and a bleeding nose, began to run off towards home. There was very little left of Dick the Dauntless, but with a desperate effort he flung Leopold into the ditch, whence Leopold crawled forth and followed Albert. Only Sam was left. Sam was large and no coward, and, in spite of a bruised eye, would have kept up the fight longer had not Cæsar appeared.
One glance at Cæsar was enough for Sam. Echoing Albert's cry of "Oh, 'elp!" he fled for dear life down the road. Then Dick the Dauntless vanished, and William, his collar burst, his tie streaming, his coat torn, his ear bleeding, turned to survey his audience of three from a quickly-closing eye.
******
William, in his pyjamas, pondered for a moment over the mystery of human life as he bestowed those few perfunctory brushes upon his shock of hair that constituted its evening toilet. He had that day committed almost every crime known to boyhood.
He had brought "common" boys home.
He had stolen a pie.
He had fought openly on the high road.
He had spoilt his collar and tie and coat, and acquired a thoroughly disreputable black eye.
Finally, turning from these crimes, fully expecting to meet with retribution at the hands of his family, he had been acclaimed as a hero. He was bewildered. He did not understand it. He did not know why he was a hero instead of a criminal. Anyway, it wasn't worth bothering over, and, anyway, he was going to have a jolly fine black eye, he thought proudly. He turned a somersault from his chair to his bed, which was his normal manner of entering it, and drew the clothes up to his chin. Before he finally surrendered to the power of sleep, he summed up his chief impressions of the evening.