When H was ten years of age, however, there transpired an incident which for a time branded him in the neighborhood as a nasty little renegade, and which had many subsequent repercussions. He touched the exposed sexual parts of a neighbor girl, who was somewhat his junior. The sister and brother of the girl were interested spectators. The children told the cooks, and the news finally got around to the mother of the girl. She took it calmly enough, but thought she ought to tell the boy’s mother. H’s mother passed the story to his father, which was the worst thing that could happen, from H’s point of view. His father administered a sharp dressing-down, and forbade him to play outside the yard for a fortnight. H’s father was very angry, and lectured him about his sins every night for a while. Presently the father went over to see the neighbor, and seems to have taken the line that the girl was as much to blame as his son if not more so. This tactless behavior completely alienated the neighbor. Now this neighbor happened to edit an important newspaper, and ever afterward this newspaper lost no opportunity to assail the efficiency of the department in the city government headed by H’s father. These attacks continued over many years, and H’s father occasionally threw it up to him that he had been responsible for the original quarrel. As it was, the boy was ostracized in the neighborhood for a year or more, and was not invited to go to parties, although he could play with the children. But H was self-conscious, and sought companionship farther away. The brother of the girl thought that he ought to turn against H, and there were some fights. At fourteen H began to go to high school. He kept away from the swimming pool during the first year or two because he was much embarrassed by the lack of hair around his genitals. This supposed retardation, about which he worried a great deal, lasted but a short time, when a new set of worries came up. He now believed that his penis was abnormally large, and that his testicles were too low-hanging and perhaps deformed. In college he was nicknamed “Cocky,” on account of his jauntiness, but he secretly suspected that this was an allusion to his penis. A chum taught him how to masturbate, and he continued to do so for about six months, when his emissions became so frequent that his mother told his father. For once, H’s father handled the situation with good sense, and after a kindly interview in which the father explained that it was not a good idea to indulge excessively, H quit. But even this matter was not terminated, for the disturbing reverie remained that perhaps his excessive masturbation had permanently impaired his manhood.