When a boy gets on his good behavior he tempts Providence.  And the Providence of boys is frail and prone to yield.  So when Bud Perkins, who was burning with a desire to please Miss Morgan the day before the circus, went to church that Sunday night, any one can see that he was provoking Providence in an unusual and cruel manner.  Bud did not sit with Miss Morgan, but lounged into the church, and took a back seat.  Three North End boys came in and sat on the same bench.  Then Jimmy Sears shuffled past the North Enders, and sat beside Bud.  After which the inevitable happened.  It kept happening.  They “passed it on,” and passed it back again; first a pinch, then a chug, then a cuff, then a kick under the bench.  Heads craned toward the boys occasionally, and there came an awful moment when Bud Perkins found himself looking brazenly into the eyes of the preacher, who had paused to glare at the boys in the midst of his sermon.  The faces of the entire congregation seemed to turn upon Bud automatically.  A cherub-like expression of conscious innocence and impenetrable unconcern beamed through Bud Perkins’s features.  The same expression rested upon the countenances of the four other malefactors.  At the end of the third second Jimmy Sears put his hand to his mouth and snorted between his fingers.  And four young men looked down their noses.  In the hush, Brother Baker—­a tiptoeing Nemesis—­stalked the full length of the church toward the culprits.  When he took his seat beside the boys the preacher continued his discourse.  Brother Baker’s unctuousness angered Bud Perkins.  He felt the implication that his conduct was bad, and his sense of guilt spurred his temper.  Satan put a pin in Bud’s hand.  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Satan moved the boy’s arm on the back of the pew, around Jimmy Sears.  Then an imp pushed Bud’s hand as he jabbed the pin into the back of a North Ender.  The boy from the North End let out a yowl of pain.  Bud was not quick enough.  Brother Baker saw the pin; two hundred devout Methodists saw him clamp his fingers on Bud Perkins’s ear, and march him down the length of the church and set him beside Miss Morgan.  It was a sickening moment.  The North End grinned as one boy under its skin, and was exceeding glad.  So agonizing was it for Bud that he forgot to imagine what a triumph it was for the North End—­and further anguish is impossible for a boy.

[Illustration:  Brother Baker—­a tiptoeing Nemesis.]

Miss Morgan and Bud Perkins left the church with the congregation.  Bud dreaded the moment when they would leave the crowd and turn into their side street.  When they did turn, Bud was lagging a step or two behind.  A boy’s troubles are always the fault of the other boy.  The North End boy’s responsibility in the matter was so clear—­to Bud—­that, when he went to justify himself to Miss Morgan, he was surprised and hurt at what he considered her feminine blindness to the fact.  After she had passed her sentence she asked:  “Do you really think you deserve to go, Henry?”