"Well, I won't run again," he said desperately. "I'll have it over with--he can only lick me." But he did run again, and often, despite all his resolves, impelled always by the psychological precedent that he had run before. The Coffee-colored Angel and the White Mountain Canary made a regular ceremony of it, raising a hue and cry at the sight of him and bursting into derisive laughter after short chases. Dink was miserable and now thoroughly frightened. He slunk into the solitude of his own company, avoiding the disdainful looks of his House mates. He knew now he was a coward and should never be anything else. He did not blame Butsey, who scarcely spoke to him. All he thought of was, by roundabout ways, to put off the dreadful hour when either the Coffee-colored Angel or the White Mountain Canary should catch him and beat him to a quivering, senseless pulp. Then the unexpected happened. One day, cutting across fields to avoid his persecutors, he was suddenly shut off by the White Mountain Canary, who rose from ambush, jeering horribly. Cut off from the Green, Dink returned post-haste up the village, when all at once the Coffee-colored Angel closed in on him. Only one way of escape was open to him, down an alley between two houses. With the Coffee-colored Angel at his heels he dashed ahead, turned the corner of the house and found himself caught in a blind area. Whereupon he turned on the Coffee-colored Angel and slathered him, drove him hither and thither with terrific blows, knocked him head over heels, caught him by the throat and beat him against a wall, rolled him on the ground and rubbed him in the dust, tore his clothes, blacked his eyes and left him beaten and supinely, passively wallowing. He walked out on his tiptoes, like a terrier, head erect, his chest out, fists still folded, tears in his eyes--tears of pride and relief. He had fought a fight, he had received terrific blows and minded them not. He had thrashed the Coffee-colored Angel: he could thrash or take a thrashing from any one. He had his first thrill, the thrill of conscious rage, comparable only to first love and first sorrow. He had licked the Coffee-colored Angel--he was not a coward! At this highly-auspicious moment the unsuspecting White Mountain Canary perceived the despised object of his chase and, raising a shout, triumphantly bore down upon him. With a rush he cleared the intervening space and then, catching sight of the new Dink, stopped as though he had been jerked in by a rope. * * * * * A few moments later the group on the Green House steps were lazily working out a French translation, which Beekstein, the Secretary of the Department of Education, was reading to them, when suddenly, in the fields opposite, two figures appeared, zigzagging wildly. "Here comes the Dink again," said Stuffy Brown. "They'll get him this time." "Who's after him?" said Tough McCarty. "He's a disgrace to the House."