Now, however, he was the lowest of the low. In the democracy of the gang, where might was right, he was a pariah, a proven coward, licked by each and every member, and ought, by the law of the survival of the fittest, to be kicked out. He was only allowed to intrude his presence on suffrance, because a higher power artificially protected him. At recess, in school, he sat on the well-worn bench that ran around the yard and watched the others play or fight. No one ever spoke to him, except now and then to throw a taunt his way. "Where's nursie, Annie?" "Hello, sissy--are yer lost?" "Where'd yer git that suit?" and similar personalities greeted him when one of the boys chanced to notice his presence. Sometimes, as he walked home, pebbles and bits of hardened mud were sent richochetting after him, but this was the extent of any assault, for the manager of the White Star, sitting behind his ground-glass door, had it within his power to speak a potent word to the father of any boy who disobeyed him. André François seldom spoke back, but his silence had something grim in it, and there was a portentous light in his eye. At home he never complained, and Angélique, rejoiced that the régime of physical violence was over, snatched the time between stitches on a wonderful, beruffled trousseau, to make him "look like the little prince." Only his father knew how he spent his time every evening in the attic, and what passionate energy he put into his work. Neither alluded to it, but both knew that the lessons had an ultimate object. And, one day, three weeks from the time he took his first boxing lesson, this object was unexpectedly accomplished. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the gang, freed from the tyranny of school and the irritation of Saturday morning chores, were joyously disporting themselves in a vacant lot at the corner of the street. The first inning of a baseball game was just over, and the overalled players were lying on the ground disputing certain fine points of the play with the audience. André François stopped, leaned on the top rail of the fence, and gazed at them a trifle wistfully. Jimmie McCarthy's roving eye discovered him, and he yelled out: "You'd better run along, Annie--nursie will be out lookin' fer yer in a minnut." The gang laughed flatteringly at the subtle wit of their leader. André François' face flushed a vivid crimson and his eyes darkened. Then he electrified the gang by leaping over the fence and rushing straight up to the redoubtable Jimmie. He thrust out his chin and yelled up into the face of the surprised leader: "I'll show you if I'm an Annie or not. D'you want to fight?" Jimmie stood dumb with amazement a moment, then he laughed long and loud, for his sense of humor was Irish; and the whole gang joined in.