Long before he could read words of three syllables, Robert had learnt the Origin of Man, and had made a vivid, somewhat fanciful picture of that personage's pathetic beginnings as a miasm floating on the earth's surface, and of his accidental, no less pathetic progression as a Survival of the Fittest. He gathered that even more than old Jaegers, Mr. Ricardo hated God Almighty and Jesus Christ, the latter of whom was intimately connected with something called a Sun Myth-chiefly, Robert supposed, because He was the Son of God. Mr. Ricardo could not leave these two alone.

He hunted them down, he badgered and worried them, he covered them with gibes and insults. It seemed to Robert sometimes that even the multiplication table was really a disguised missile hurled in their unsuspecting and non-existent faces.

Mr. Ricardo appeared to have no friends. As far as Robert could make out, when he was not at school he sat at his desk in the untidy, stuffy attic in the still more untidy, stuffy boarding-house where he lived, and wrote feverishly. What he wrote Robert did not know. There was an air of mystery about the whole business, as though he were concocting a deadly explosive which might go off at any moment. Sometimes he seemed dated, sometimes cast down by the results, but always doggedly resolved.

"It is a long, hard struggle, Stonehouse," he would say. "There are more fools in this world than you could conceive possible. Thank your stars your friend isn't one of them. A fine, intelligent woman-a unique woman."

He talked a good deal about Christine and women in general.

"When once we can get them on our side," was one of his dark sayings, "the last trench will be in our hands."

Then, one evening, to Robert's astonished displeasure, he walked home with him, and somehow drifted up their dark stairs to the little sitting-room where Christine was laying supper. It appeared that he had come to give an account of his pupil's progress, but he was oddly excited, and when Christine invited him to share their meal-surely he could have seen there wasn't enough to go round, Robert thought-he accepted with a transparent, childlike eagerness that made Robert stare at him as at a stranger. And after supper, with the self-conscious air of a man who has waited for this moment, be produced from his coat pocket a crumpled newspaper with the title Unshackled printed in aggressive letters on its pale-green cover.

"In my leisure time I write a good deal on a subject very dear to me, Miss Forsyth," he said and screwed up his sharp nose in a kind of nervous anguish. "I have here an article published last week-you are a broad-minded, intelligent woman-I thought perhaps it might interest you-if you would care to glance over it."

Christine lay back in her chair, her face in shadow. But the lamplight fell on her two hands. Red and misshapen as they were now, they were still noble hands, and their repose had dignity and beauty.

"Won't you read it to us, Mr. Ricardo? My eyes are tired at night."

He cleared his throat.

"It is an answer to Bishop Crawford's recent letter to The Times, which you may have seen. I have called it 'Unmasking the Oracle.'"

Robert leant out of the window and watched the sun sink into mist and smoke. He wished Mr. Ricardo hadn't come; and that he would go away soon. In a few minutes the light would begin to die, and the sharp black lines of the roofs and spires, which on the ruins of their dull selves seemed to be built anew into a witchlike fantastic city, would be lost to him for another night. Robert did not want to hear about God and the origin of man now. He kicked impatiently. Christine would sit up later than ever. And, besides with Mr. Ricardo's voice rising and falling, growing shriller and more passionate, one could not listen to that low, mysterious hum that was so like a far-off music.

Mr. Ricardo made a sweeping, crushing gesture. "That, surely, settles the controversy. He will hardly be able to answer that, I think."

Christine stirred, and opened her eyes, and smiled a little.

"I could not answer it, at any rate. It sounds very clever." She took the paper from him and held it to the light, and Robert turned, hoping that now he would really go. "But-but I didn't quite understand-have I lost the place?-this is by E. T. Richards."

Then Robert saw an astonishing thing. Suddenly Mr. Ricardo seemed to shrivel-to cower back into himself. His fierce, triumphant energy had gone as at a blasting touch of magic. He looked ashamed and broken.

"A nom de plume-a nom de guerre, rather, Miss Forsyth-you understand-in my opinion-the scholastic profession-the stronghold of the worst bigotry and prejudice-for myself I should not care-I have always wanted to come out into the open-but I have a sister-poor girl!-a long, sad illness-for her sake-I can't afford--"

Christine folded the paper gently as though she were afraid of hurting it.

"Of course. It would be unwise-unnecessary. Why should one sacrifice oneself to fight something that doesn't exist?"

He clenched his fists.

"One must fight error, Miss Forsyth."

"At any rate it's brave of you to try-to do what you think is right." And now it seemed she was trying to find something that would comfort him-just as she had once given Robert peppermint balls when he had hurt himself. "If ever you feel inclined, won't you come again-and read to us?"

He looked at her with dark, tragic eyes.

"Thank you, thank you."

Robert went with him to the door, and for a moment he wavered on the steps, blinking, and squeezing his soft hat between his bony hands.

"A great woman-a kind woman-you must be worth her while, Stonehouse."

And then, without so much as a "good night," he limped down the steps and along the street, flitting in and out of the lamplight like a hunted bat.

It was the first of many tiresome evening visits. But the next day he was always himself again, and the class wilted under his merciless, contemptuous sarcasms. Only Robert was not afraid. He knew that the lash would never come his way, and he could feel the little man's unspoken pride, when he showed himself quicker than his companions, like a secret Masonic pressure of the hand. And there was something else. It was a discovery that made him at first almost dizzy with astonishment. He wasn't stupid. Just as he was stronger, so he was cleverer than boys older than himself. He could do things at once over which they botched and bungled. He outstripped them when he chose. Even his ignorance did not handicap him for long. For Mr. Ricardo had kept his promise. He taught well, and in those long afternoons in the hot boarding-house attic Robert had raced over the lost ground. He did not always want to work. He gazed out of the window, half his mind busy planning what he and Rufus Cosgrave would do when they met at the corner of the street, but he could not help understanding what was so obvious, and there were moments when sheer interest swept him off his feet, and even Rufus was forgotten. He took an audacious pleasure, too, in leaping suddenly over the heads of the whole class to the first place. He did not always bother. He liked to wait for some really teasing question, and then, when silence had become hopeless, hold up his hand. Mr. Ricardo would look towards him, apparently incredulous and satirical, but Robert could read the message which the narrowed eyes twinkled at him.

"Of course you understand, Stonehouse."

And then he would answer and sweep the sullen class with a cool, exasperating indifference as he sat down. For he did not want them any more. He returned instinctive enmity with the scorn of a growing confidence. It was rather fine to stand by yourself, especially when you had one friend who thought you splendid whatever you did, who clung to you, and whom you had to protect. When he walked arm in arm with Rufus Cosgrave in the playground he trailed his coat insolently, and the challenge was not once accepted. From the biggest boys to Dickson Minor, no one cared to risk the limitless possibilities of an encounter, and the word "carrots" was not so much as whispered in his hearing.

Then in the late afternoon the real day seemed to begin. Then the hardness and distrust with which he had unconsciously armed himself fell away, and he and Rufus Cosgrave sat side by side in the sooty grass behind the biscuit factory, and with arms clasped about their scarred and grubby knees planned out the vague but glorious time that waited for them. Rufus was to be a Civil Servant. He did not seem to care much for the prospect or even to be very clear as to what would be expected of him. He felt, with Robert, that a Civil Servant sounded servile and romanceless, but unfortunately the profession, whatever it was, ran in the family.

"My father's one, you know. So I've got to. I'd rather play the piano. But, of course, I wouldn't say so to anyone but you. It sounds too beastly silly--"

"I'd say whatever I wanted to," Robert retorted grandly, "I'll always say what I want to and do what I jolly well like when I'm grown up anyhow. You can if you're strong enough."

"But then people hate you," Rufus said sadly.

"That doesn't matter a bit."

"Don't you mind people not liking you?"

"Rather not."

Rufus fumbled anxiously.

"Wouldn't you be pleased if-if you were asked to play in the eleven-and the chaps cheered you like they do Christopher when he kicks a goal?"

"I shouldn't care-not a button." But he knew even then that it was not true. His heart had leapt at the very thought. He drew his fair brows together in the portentous Stonehouse scowl. "It's silly to mind what silly people think. And kicking goals is no good. I'm going to be a doctor-not just the ordinary sort-a big doctor-and I'll discover things-and people like Christopher'll come and beg me to keep them alive."

Rufus sighed deeply.

"I wish I was like that. I mind awfully-being ragged, and all that. I was awfully miserable until you came. If you went away-or didn't care any more-I don't know what I'd do. But if I went away you wouldn't mind--"

"Yes, I would."

"But you're so much stronger."

"I like being strongest."

And then and there he expounded the doctrine of the Survival, and Rufus began to shiver all over like a frightened pony.

"I think it's perfectly beastly. What'll happen to me? Anyone can lick me. I wouldn't have a chance."

The tears came into his round, blue eyes and trickled down his freckled cheeks, and a sudden choking tenderness, a dim perception of all that this one friend meant to him, made Robert fling his arms about him and hug him close.

"Yes-you would. Because I'll look after you-always-honest injun."

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