“The dear boy!  The little pet!  How brave!  What courage!  What an example to us all!  And the horrid, wretched man!  Posing as a hero.  Wangling himself into the sweet child’s confidence.  Are you hurt, my precious?  Did the nasty man hurt you?  You darling boy!”

When the babel had somewhat subsided, Mr. Brown came forward and laid a hand on William’s shoulder.

“I’m very pleased with you, my boy,” he said.  “You can buy anything you like to-morrow up to five shillings.”

William’s bewildered countenance cleared.

“Thank you, father,” he said meekly.

CHAPTER IV

THE KNIGHT AT ARMS

“A knight,” said Miss Drew, who was struggling to inspire her class with enthusiasm for Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King,” “a knight was a person who spent his time going round succouring the oppressed.”

“Suckin’ wot?” said William, bewildered.

“Succour means to help.  He spent his time helping anyone who was in trouble.”

“How much did he get for it?” asked William.

“Nothing, of course,” said Miss Drew, appalled by the base commercialism of the twentieth century.  “He helped the poor because he loved them, William.  He had a lot of adventures and fighting and he helped beautiful, persecuted damsels.”

William’s respect for the knight rose.

“Of course,” said Miss Drew hastily, “they needn’t necessarily be beautiful, but, in most of the stories we have, they were beautiful.”

Followed some stories of fighting and adventure and the rescuing of beautiful damsels.  The idea of the thing began to take hold of William’s imagination.

“I say,” he said to his chum Ginger after school, “that knight thing sounds all right.  Suckin’—­I mean helpin’ people an’ fightin’ an’ all that.  I wun’t mind doin’ it an’ you could be my squire.”

“Yes,” said Ginger slowly, “I’d thought of doin’ it, but I’d thought of you bein’ the squire.”

“Well,” said William after a pause, “let’s be squires in turn.  You first,” he added hastily.

“Wot’ll you give me if I’m first?” said Ginger, displaying again the base commercialism of his age.

William considered.

“I’ll give you first drink out of a bottle of ginger-ale wot I’m goin’ to get with my next money.  It’ll be three weeks off ’cause they’re takin’ the next two weeks to pay for an ole window wot my ball slipped into by mistake.”

He spoke with the bitterness that always characterised his statements of the injustice of the grown-up world.

“All right,” said Ginger.

“I won’t forget about the drink of ginger-ale.”

“No, you won’t,” said Ginger simply.  “I’ll remind you all right.  Well, let’s set off.”

“‘Course,” said William, “it would be nicer with armour an’ horses an’ trumpets, but I ’spect folks ud think anyone a bit soft wot went about in the streets in armour now, ’cause these times is different.  She said so.  Anyway she said we could still be knights an’ help people, di’n’t she?  Anyway, I’ll get my bugle.  That’ll be something.”