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the way he wants, you're done," it used to be said, "and you can't hit him, he's too quick."
    The strange thing was that in every quarrel it seemed to the public that not John but the other was the aggressor.
    The climax was the ease of Stephen, now captain of his school's First Fifteen, and a thoroughly good friend to John.
    One day when I was talking to Thomas in his study we heard an Unusual scuffling in the garden. Looking out, we saw Stephen rushing Vainly at the elusive John; who, as he leapt side, landed his baby fist time after time with dire effect on Stephen's face. It was a face almost unrecognizable with rage and perplexity, shockingly unlike the kindly Stephen. Both combatants were plastered with blood, apparently from Stephen's nose.
    John too was a changed being. His lips were drawn back in an inhuman blend of snarl and smile. One eye was half closed from Stephen's only successful blow, the other cavernous like the eye of a mask. For when ohn was enraged, the iris drew almost entirely out of sight.
    The conflict was so unprecedented and so fantastic that for some moments Thomas and I were paralysed. At last Stephen managed to seize the diabolic child; or was allowed to seize him. We dashed downstairs to the rescue. But when we reached the garden. Stephen was lying on his stomach writhing and gasping, with his arms pinned behind him in the grip of John's tarantula hands.
    The appearance of John at that moment gave me a startling impression of something fiendish. Crouched and clutching, he seemed indeed a spider preparing to suck the life out of the tortured boy beneath him. The sight, I remember, actually made me feel sick.
    We stood bewildered by this unexpected turn of events. John looked around, and his eye met mine. Never have I seen so arrogant, so hideous an expression of the lust of power as on that childish face.
    For some seconds we gazed at one another. Evidently my look expressed the horror that I felt, for his mood rapidly changed. Rage visibly faded out and gave place first to curiosity then to abstraction. Suddenly John laughed that enigmatic laugh of his. There was no ring of triumph in it, rather a note of self-mockery, and perhaps of awe.
    He released his victim, rose and said, "Get up, Stephen, old man. I'm sorry I made you lose your hair."
    But Stephen had fainted.
    We never discovered what it was all about. When we questioned John, he said, "It's all over. Let's forget about it. Poor old Stephen! But no, I won't forget."
    When we questioned Stephen a few days later, he said, "I can't bear to think of it. It was my fault, really. I see that now. Somehow I went mad, when he was intending to be specially decent, too. But to be licked by a kid like that! But he's not a kid, he's lightning."
    Now I do not pretend to be able to understand John, but I cannot help having one or two theories about him. In the present case my theory is this. He was at this time plainly going through a phase of concentrated self-asscrtion. I do not believe, however, that he had been nursing a spirit of revenge ever since the affair of the mower. I believe he had determined in cold blood to try his strength, or rather his skill, against the most formidable of his acquaintances; and that with this end in view he had deliberately and subtly goaded the wretched Stephen into fury. John's own rage, I suspect, was entirely artificial. He could fight better in a sort of cold fury, so he produced one. As I see it, the great test had to be no friendly bout, but a real wild-beast, desperate encounter. Well, John got what he wanted. And having got it, he saw, in a flash and once for all, right through it and beyond it. So at least I believe.

CHAPTER IV
JOHN AND HIS ELDERS
    THOUGH the fight with Stephen was, I believe one of the chief landmarks in John's life, outwardly things went on much as before; save that he gave up fighting, and spent a good deal more time by himself.
    Between him and Stephen, friendship was restored, but it