"Stick-to-my-muvver-an-don't-touch-me!" the voice continued. The girls were silent, for chivalry was not a predominant trait in the psychology of the "gang." Jessie still bore a black eye inflicted by Barney in unequal war. It was Barney took up the cry: "Philip Massel, Queen-of-the-Girls!" This was a slogan which appealed to his comrades. "Philip Massel, Queen-of-the-Girls!" they reiterated shrilly. Philip's face was pale. His hand trembled as he cut the pictures. The bust of the next lady he delimitated sadly belied the merits claimed by the advertisement. "Oo--oo! 'Oo kissed Jessie in the back entry?" Barney howled. "Philip Massel, Queen-of-the-Girls!" the rest sang in choric delight. Oh, the black cavernous lie! Was Jehovah silent? Philip's eyes blazed. He flung his scissors down with a crash. The further side of Angel Street rose and sank as he rushed towards Barney. The rules of the ring had not yet been studied in Angel Street. Murderously he buffeted his fists against Barney's abdomen. Barney turned green and subsided. The rest of the "gang" jumped upon Philip and were comfortably pummelling him when Reb Monash appeared on the scene. Mrs. Levine had lost no time in informing him that a brawl was in progress. Reb Monash had no doubt it involved those of his scholars who were already scandalously late for _chayder_. The "gang" wilted before him. At his feet lay Philip, gasping and bleeding. "Feivele at the bottom of it!" he thundered. "Oh, a credit thou art to thy race! An eight-year old, and this is the sum of thy knowledge! Come then, I will instruct thee!" and he led Philip sternly home by a familiar grasp of the brachial muscle between finger and thumb. Jessie picked up the scissors ruminatively and turned the pages of the _Strand Magazine_. The idea shortly after occurred to Philip that some compromise with his sex ought to be possible. It occurred simultaneously with the appearance in his library of a new type of American hero. He was now able to read without difficulty the "bloods" which described with impartial gusto sandbaggings in the Bowery and the slaughter of travellers conducted by Poncho-clad desperadoes in the Argentine. Lurid as the "gang" was in behaviour, their literature was still extremely tepid. Intellectually, they had not outstepped Lady Kathleen's tender limits as laid down in her _Books for the Bairns_, whereas Philip's heart had for months hovered and exulted with the hearts of fully-fledged errand boys, twelve and fourteen years old.