armies in Flanders pallid, and kicked Paul into the scullery. There
the boy remained and went supperless to his bed of sacks, aching and
tearless. Before he slept he put his cornelian heart in his
hiding-hole. What cared he for stripes or kicks or curses with the
Vision Splendid glowing before his eyes?



CHAPTER II

FOR splenetic reasons which none but the Buttons of this world can
appreciate, Paul was forbidden, under pain of ghastly tortures, to
go near the Sunday school again, and, lest he should defy authority,
he was told off on Sunday afternoons to mind the baby, either in the
street or the scullery, according to the weather, while the other
little Buttons were not allowed to approach him. The defection of
the brilliant scholar having been brought to the vicar's notice, he
ventured to call one Saturday afternoon on the Buttons, but such was
the contumely with which he was received that the good man hastily
retreated. In lung power he was outmatched. In repartee he was
singularly outclassed. He then sent the superintendent of the
school, a man of brawn and zeal, to see what muscular Christianity
could accomplish. But muscular Christianity, losing its head, came
off with a black eye. After that the Buttons were left alone, and no
friendly hand drew Paul within the gates of his Sunday Paradise. He
thought of it with aching wistfulness. The only thing that the
superintendent could do was to give him surreptitiously a
prayer-book, bidding him perfect himself in the Catechism in view of
future Confirmation. But, as emulation of his fellows and not
religious zeal was the mainspring of Paul's enthusiasm, the pious