But they had not much in common. She was not only little, and a girl, — he might have forgiven these defects, — she was also "good." She sat on people's laps, and shut the door after her, and was kissed and praised, and had sweets given her by visitors, who liked to stroke her pretty hair. Jack wondered sometimes how the caresses didn't make her sick, and why she didn't cut the hair off with Aunt Sarah's scissors and throw it in the people's faces. He would have dragged his out by the roots if any one had "pawed it about" that way.

The only human creatures whom he recog­nised as having any moral claim upon him were the larrikins to whom, for nearly two years now, he had been leader. His ethical code was barbaric and primitive; it never occurred to him to think that he was doing anything mean or unworthy in breaking people's windows, looting their apples, or wantonly damaging their kitchen gardens; nor did he think it necessary to consult at all the personal wishes of his subjects; he was the master, and his will was law; but to abandon his boys in a crisis, or allow one of them to take a caning which he could by any manoeuvring have transferred to his own shoulders, would have seemed to him a mon­strous thing. His tiny kingdom was an absolute despotism; in his eyes the whole duty of a subject consisted in obedience, that of a ruler in loyalty; he was splendidly loyal to his boys, but he despised them in his heart.

From human society, great and small, he came back always with relief to furred or feathered creatures, to cliffs and moor and sea. The puppies and the rabbits, the village dogs and cats, all knew a side of him which the Vicar had never seen. Even the lesser humans to whom he extended his pro­tection never saw quite the real Jack; with Billy Greggs he was scornfully tolerant, with Molly condescendingly good-natured; with animals, especially if they were small and helpless, he could be full of tender loving-kindness.