Like all despots who rule through fear, Curly had a following. It was made up of lesser lights of like tastes and ambitions, who toadied to and imitated the tyrant simply to avoid the unpleasant necessities which the alternative involved. These followers, numbering some six or eight, through their unity of aim and Curly's leadership, had gained a certain ascendency over the far greater, but unorganized, body of would-be independents who, chafe as they might under the yoke, dared not attempt to throw it off; and these loyal retainers were zealous in service of their lord's interests and pleasure. On that beautiful fall morning when Bob first went alone to school, he had not been ten minutes on the playground, standing upon its outer edge, school-bag and lunch-box in hand, to gaze upon its novelties, before a satellite of Curly's, one Percy Emery, espied him. Instantly it was as though Percy had discovered some new quarry, unearthed a fresh specimen of some genus, edible and choice. "Hi, Curly," he yelled, with the eager loyalty of his kind, "come 'ere. 'Ere's a new one. Look at the school-bag to 'im." Curly, who was at the moment engaged in the pleasing pastime of hectoring a scared little five-year-old who ought still to have been in the kindergarten, pricked up his ears at the cry and, like a hungry bird of prey leaving a mouse for a lamb, promptly swooped down upon the new game. His movement was the signal for the gathering of a crowd, and, before Bob was fairly aware that he was the object of attention, he had become the center of a curious group whose interest, if not wholly hostile, was in the main certainly not friendly. The dictator himself confronted him with unmistakably bellicose intentions. "New shoes!" said Curly contemptuously, selecting the first obviously vulnerable point open to a shaft of insult. "New shoes! Spit on 'em!" He suited the action to the word, and immediately word and act alike were imitated by two or three of his more ardent admirers. "Stop!" said Bob. He did not know what it meant. He backed away from his persecutors. "Aw, stop, eh?" mocked Curly. "Who are _you_? What's yer name?" "Bob McAllister." "Bob! Bob-tail! Bob-cat!" chanted Curly, in gratuitous insult of which only bantam shamelessness is capable. "Stop, will I? Who'll make me? You? You want to fight?" He danced about Bob's quiet little figure, snapping his fingers in the new boy's eyes. Then, suddenly, he swung his wiry body and swept a stinging blow in Bob's face. A yell of delight from the despot's own drowned a weaker chorus of protest. Curly backed and squared, ready for some show of retaliation or resistance, a scornful little grin on his face. "Come on, now. Fight! Stop me!" he cried.