Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows." I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it.

The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded.
"Wicked and cruel boy!" I said.

"You are like a murderer--you are like a slave-driver--you are like the Roman emperors!" I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, &c.

Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never thought thus to have declared aloud.
"What! what!" he cried.

"Did she say that to me?
Did you hear her, Eliza and Georgiana?
Won't I tell mama?
but first--" He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had closed with a desperate thing.