of him. Once more he was urged by the ragged brats to deeds of
blood. He did not respond. Paul kicked him again before his
followers. If he could have gone on kicking him for ever and ever
what delirium of joy were eternity! Billy edged farther away. The
mongrel game-cock was beaten. Paul, dramatically conscious of what
the unrecognized prince would do in such a circumstance, advanced,
smacked his face, plucked the cocked hat from his head, the sword
from his hand, and invested himself with these insignia of
leadership, Billy melted silently into the subfusc air of Budge
Street. The ragged regiment looked around and there was no Billy.
Paul Keg worthy, the raggedest of them all, with nothing to
recommend him but his ridiculous exotic beauty and the paper and
wooden spolia opima of the vanquished, stood before them, a tattered
Caesar. The gang hung spellbound. They were ready, small band of
heroes, to follow him against the hordes of Stamford Street. They
only awaited his signal. Paul tasted a joy known but to few of the
sons of men-absolute power over, and supreme contempt for, his
fellows. He stood for a moment or two, in the grey, miserable street
discordant with the wailings of babies and the clamour of futile
little girls, who, after the manner of women, had no idea of
political crisis, and the shrill objurgations of slattern mothers
and the raucous cries of an idealist vendor of hyacinths, and,
cocked hat on head and wooden sword in hand, he looked at his
fawning army. Then came the touch of genius that was often to
characterize his actions in after years. It was mimetic, as he had
read of such a thing in his paper-covered textbooks-but it was none
the less a touch of genius. He frowned on the dirty, ignoble little
boys. What had he in common with them-he, the son of a prince?
Nothing. He snapped his sword across his knee, tore his cocked hat
in two, and, casting the fragments before them, marched proudly