You must remember this, if you would understand Paul's after-life.

It was built on this radiant knowledge.
In the afternoon he met Billy Goodge and the gang.

They were playing at soldiers, Billy distinguished by a cocked hat made out of newspaper and a wooden sword.
"Coom on, Susie, wi be going to knock hell out of the boys in Stamford Street." Paul folded his arms and looked at him contemptuously, as became one of his noble blood.

"You could no' knock hell out of a bug." "What's that tha says ?" Paul repeated the insult.
"Say that agen!" blustered the cocked-hatted leader.
Paul said it again and nothing happened, Billy received vociferous and sanguinary advice couched in sanguinary terms.
"Try and hit me!" said Billy.
The scene was oddly parallel with one in the story of the outcast boy of the gutter.

Paul, conscious of experiment, calmly went up to him and kicked him.