I also took occasional lessons in the noble art of self-defence, under the tuition of Phil Adams.
I brooded over the matter until the idea of fighting Conway became a part of me.

I fought him in imagination during school-hours; I dreamed of fighting with him at night, when he would suddenly expand into a giant twelve feet high, and then as suddenly shrink into a pygmy so small that I couldn't hit him.

In this latter shape he would get into my hair, or pop into my waistcoat-pocket, treating me with as little ceremony as the Liliputians showed Captain Lemuel Gulliver--all of which was not pleasant, to be sure.

On the whole, Conway was a cloud.
And then I had a cloud at home.

It was not Grandfather Nutter, nor Miss Abigail, nor Kitty Collins, though they all helped to compose it.