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The dog mother who routs up her little pup from his comfortable nap, and shakes him with her teeth, and knocks him down and rolls him over and worries him till he yaps and yelps as if his last day had come, is not such a bully as the cat who holds a mouse under his paw, and plays with it and torments it previous to making a meal of it.

In one case the discipline is salutary and serves a good end; in the other it is sheer cruelty.

Just let me introduce you to a bully of the true sort–one whom we might call a professional bully–as contrasted with the amateur big- brother bullies of whom I have been speaking.

Bob Bangs of our school was a big, ill-conditioned, lazy, selfish, cross-grained sort of fellow. He was nearly the tallest fellow in the fifth form, but by no means the strongest. He was narrow across the chest, and shaky about the knees, though we youngsters held him too much in awe to take this into account at the time. To the big boys of the sixth form Bob was cringing and snivelling; nothing was too menial, so only as he could keep in their good graces. If he had known how, I dare say he would have blacked their boots or parted their hair; as it was, he laid himself out to fetch and carry, to go and come just as their lordships should direct; and their lordships, I have a notion, winked at one another and gave him plenty to do.

But to us youngsters Bob was wholly different. For one of us to come so much as across his path was sufficient provocation to his spite. Like a spider in its web, he would waylay and capture the wretched small fry of our school and haul them away to his den. There he would screw their arms and kick them, just for the pleasure of seeing their faces and hearing their howls. Generally, indeed, he managed to invent some pretext for his chastisement. This one had made a grimace at him across the room yesterday; that one had spilt some ink on his desk; poor Jack Flighty had had the cheek to laugh outside his door while he was reading; or Joe Tyler had bagged his straw hat instead of his own.

One day, I remember, I, a little unfortunate of ten summers, fell into his awful clutches.

“Come here, you young beggar!” I heard him call out.

I dared not disobey, and stood before him shaking in my shoes.

“What are you laughing at?” he says.

“I’m not laughing,” I said, feeling anything but in the humour for jocularity.

“Yes, you are, I tell you–take that!” and a smart box on the ear followed.

I writhed, but tried hard to suppress my ejaculation of pain.

“What’s that you called me?” demanded the bully.

“Nothing,” I faltered, rubbing my head.

“Yes, you did,” he said; “take that for telling a cram, and that for calling me names!” and suiting the action to the word he bestowed one cuff and one kick on my unoffending person, each of which I acknowledged by a howl.

“Now then,” said he, “what did you mean by borrowing Tom Groby’s Gulliver’s Travels yesterday when you knew I wanted to read it, eh?”

And he caught hold of my hand and gave my arm a suggestive preliminary screw.

“I didn’t,” I said.

“Yes, you did,” said he, tightening the pressure, so as to make me catch my under lip in my teeth. “You knew well enough I was half through it.”

“I mean, I didn’t borrow it. I never saw the book,” I shrieked, truly enough too, for this was clearly a case of mistaken identity.

“Yes, you did, for I was told so.”

“I didn’t; oh, let me go!” I cried, twisting under the torture; “it wasn’t me!”

“I tell you it was;” another screw, and another dance and howl from me; “and what’s the use of you saying it wasn’t?”