But, oh! the anguish of the poor little beggar! Can any one who has
not been through it imagine it! Reduced to its actualities, what was
it? Gibes and jeers that, after all, break no bones. A few pinches,
kicks and slaps; at worst a few hard knocks. But the dreading of it
beforehand! Terror lived in every street, hid, waiting for me, round
each corner. The half-dozen wrangling over their marbles--had they
seen me? The boy whistling as he stood staring into the print shop,
would I get past him without his noticing me; or would he, swinging
round upon his heel, raise the shrill whoop that brought them from
every doorway to hunt me?

The shame, when caught at last and cornered: the grinning face that
would stop to watch; the careless jokes of passers-by, regarding the
whole thing but as a sparrows' squabble: worst of all, perhaps, the
rare pity! The after humiliation when, finally released, I would dart
away, followed by shouted taunts and laughter; every eye turned to
watch me, shrinking by; my whole small carcass shaking with dry sobs
of bitterness and rage!

If only I could have turned and faced them! So far as the mere
bearing of pain was concerned, I knew myself brave. The physical
suffering resulting from any number of stand-up fights would have been
trivial compared with the mental agony I endured. That I, the comrade
of a hundred heroes--I, who nightly rode with Richard Coeur de Lion,
who against Sir Lancelot himself had couched a lance, and that not
altogether unsuccessful, I to whom all damsels in distress were wont
to look for succour--that I should run from varlets such as these!

My friend, my bosom friend, good Robin Hood! how would he have behaved