They passed duly through the vestibule into the great "infants' hall." At its geometrical centre the principal pleaseteacher sat, pavilioned in terrors. A few words of high import passed between Miss Featherstone and Channah. Before Philip's eyes the walls soared endlessly into perpendicular space. There was no ceiling. He made the hideous discovery that there was no floor to the room. His shining boots hung suspended in space. Strange antiphonies propounded and expounded the cosmic mysteries. He was lost. He was rolling headlong among the winds, like a piece of cotton-fluff lifted high above the roofs of Angel Street. What was this? The pleaseteacher was looking at him; her mouth was opening; there were big cracks on each side of her nose. Yes, she was smiling into him. He resumed his ponderable qualities. He was a little boy dismally sick in the infants' hall of the Bridgeway Elementary School. He preferred to be a piece of cotton-fluff. It was a more impersonal doom. "What's your name, little boy?" He wondered whether it was an impertinence to reply. It was funny and dry at the back of his throat. He stared fixedly at the crack on the left side of her nose. "What's your name, little boy?" A certain acidulation had thinned her voice. "My name Feivele an' I live at ten Angel Street an' I'm five years old an' my farver's Rebbie Massel!" he said, the words trembling out in a bewildered spate. "Will you ask your brother to speak a little more slowly and distinctly, Miss Massel? Thank you. Now what's your name, little boy?" "Philip Massel, pleaseteacher!" "Now, Philip Massel. I'm your head mistress. You must call _me_ Miss Featherstone. Miss Briggs!" she called, "Miss Briggs! Will you please put Philip Massel into your class?" Then turning to Philip, "You will kindly call Miss Briggs 'teacher.' You understand?" "Yes, pleaseteacher!" "Stupid! But he'll soon know better," she assured Channah. "Yes, Miss Featherstone!" Channah corroborated. Philip's hand feverishly held his sister's all this while. "You'd better just see him to his place," said Miss Featherstone to Channah, as Miss Briggs led the way to her class. "Sit here, Philip," said Miss Briggs, "next to Hyman Marks!" "Don't go 'way, don't go 'way!" Philip huskily implored Channah. Hundreds of scornful eyes were stripping him bare of his blouse, his shined boots, his bow of vermilion sateen, till they all lay at his feet in a miserable heap and he shivered there in the cold, naked, despised. "Don't go 'way!" he moaned. Channah looked despairingly towards Miss Briggs. Miss Briggs seized her chalk significantly. It was time the new-comer had settled down. "I'll tell you what," said Channah, "I'll go to Moishele's and buy you a ha'pny tiger nuts and a box of crayons. And I'll come back straight away." "Promise!" he demanded in anguish. "_Emmes!_" she said, invoking the Hebrew name of Truth.