straight for the ground he covered. Then one of them had the brilliant
idea of imitating Philip's clumsy run. Other boys saw it and began to
laugh; then they all copied the first; and they ran round Philip, limping
grotesquely, screaming in their treble voices with shrill laughter. They
lost their heads with the delight of their new amusement, and choked with
helpless merriment. One of them tripped Philip up and he fell, heavily as
he always fell, and cut his knee. They laughed all the louder when he got
up. A boy pushed him from behind, and he would have fallen again if
another had not caught him. The game was forgotten in the entertainment of
Philip's deformity. One of them invented an odd, rolling limp that struck
the rest as supremely ridiculous, and several of the boys lay down on the
ground and rolled about in laughter: Philip was completely scared. He
could not make out why they were laughing at him. His heart beat so that
he could hardly breathe, and he was more frightened than he had ever been
in his life. He stood still stupidly while the boys ran round him,
mimicking and laughing; they shouted to him to try and catch them; but he
did not move. He did not want them to see him run any more. He was using
all his strength to prevent himself from crying.

Suddenly the bell rang, and they all trooped back to school. Philip's knee
was bleeding, and he was dusty and dishevelled. For some minutes Mr. Rice
could not control his form. They were excited still by the strange
novelty, and Philip saw one or two of them furtively looking down at his
feet. He tucked them under the bench.

In the afternoon they went up to play football, but Mr. Watson stopped
Philip on the way out after dinner.

"I suppose you can't play football, Carey?" he asked him.