with divers unprofitable friends, among whom I count the vulgar little
boy. The manner in which he first attracted my attention was purely
accidental. He was playing in the street, and the driver of a passing
vehicle cut at him, sportively, with his whip. The vulgar little boy
rose to his feet and hurled after his tormentor a single sentence of
invective. I refrain from repeating it, for I feel that I could not do
justice to it here. If I remember rightly, it conveyed, in a very few
words, a reflection on the legitimacy of the driver's birth; it hinted
a suspicion of his father's integrity, and impugned the fair fame of
his mother; it suggested incompetency in his present position, personal
uncleanliness, and evinced a sceptical doubt of his future salvation. As
his youthful lips closed over the last syllable, the eyes of the vulgar
little boy met mine. Something in my look emboldened him to wink. I did
not repel the action nor the complicity it implied. From that moment I
fell into the power of the vulgar little boy, and he has never left me
since.

He haunts me in the streets and by-ways. He accosts me, when in the
company of friends, with repulsive freedom. He lingers about the gate
of my dwelling to waylay me as I issue forth to business. Distance
he overcomes by main strength of lungs, and he hails me from the next
street. He met me at the theatre the other evening, and demanded my
check with the air of a young foot-pad. I foolishly gave it to him,
but re-entering some time after, and comfortably seating myself in the
parquet, I was electrified by hearing my name called from the gallery
with the addition of a playful adjective. It was the vulgar little boy.
During the performance he projected spirally-twisted playbills in my
direction, and indulged in a running commentary on the supernumeraries
as they entered.