Something happened. Perhaps it was a fierce realization of the injustice of everything--the injustice of being sent there by people whom I loved, the injustice of not being spoken to, the injustice of the boys jeering because I was getting thrashed. I felt that I did not care how much I got damaged if only I might kill the Bantam. He thumped me on the nose as I looked up; my eyes filled with tears. I dashed in at him, banging him about the head. I heard his teeth rattle. I heard the shouting, “Hurrah! Go it, new-bug. Well done, new-bug.” In front of me the wintry sunset lay red. I remember wondering whether it was sunset or blood. Then the Bantam tried to turn and run. I caught him behind the ear. He tripped up and fell. I stood over him, doubtful whether he were dead. Just then the door of the laboratory opened. The boys began to scatter, shouting to one another, “The Creature! Here he comes. The Creature!” The Bantam picked himself up and followed the crowd. A man came round the side of the shed. He looked something like Dot-and-Carry-One, only he was smaller. His hair was the color of a badger’s, shaggy and unbrushed. His face was stubbly and besmirched with different colored chalks from his fingers. His clothes were stained and baggy. He approached sideways, crabwise, in a great hurry, with one hand stretched out behind and one in front, like flappers. His gestures were those of a servant in a Chinese etching; they made him absurdly conspicuous by their self-belittlement. Beyond everything, he was dirty. “What they been beating you for?” he inquired in his shorthand way of talking. “You hit him first! What for?” He pulled a stump of a pencil out of his mouth as though he were drawing a tooth. After that I could hear him more clearly. “A muffler? He trod on it? Well, that’s nothing to fight about. Oh, your sister gave it you? That’s different.” The last two sentences were spoken very gently--quite unlike the rest, which had been angry. “Humph! His sister gave it him!” He took me by the hand and led me into the shed, closing the door behind him. An iron stove was burning. The outside was red hot; it glowered through the dusk. Running round the sides of the room were taps and basins, and above them bottles. Ranged on the table in the middle were stands, bunsen-burners and retorts. He went silently about his work. He was melting sulphur in a crucible. Every now and then the sulphur caught and burnt with a violet flame; and all the while it made a suffocating smell. I felt scared. I didn’t know what he was going to do with me. The boys had called him The Creature, which sounded very dreadful. He had dragged me into his den just like the ogres the Snow Lady read about. Presently his experiment ended. He gave me a seat by the stove, and came and sat beside me. He didn’t look at all fierce now. He struck me as old and discouraged. “Always fight for your sister,” he said. Then after a pause, “What’s she called?”