But they kept far enough back of him to require that their voices should be raised.

Incessantly the pitiless rain fell upon him--"Mer-tun, he throwed you off right into the dirt, didn't he, Merton ?" He turned out of the alley up Spruce Street.

The Ransom children lawlessly followed, forgetting their good home, their poor, sick mother and the rules she had laid down for their Sabbath recreation.

At every moment the shrill cry reached his burning ears, "Mer-tun, didn't he throw you off ?" The kiddies appeared to believe that Merton had not heard them, but they were patient.

Presently he would hear and reassure them that he had, indeed, been thrown off right into the dirt.
Now he began to meet or pass early churchgoers who would gaze at him in wonder or in frank criticism.