But I want you to know you've just kicked something that's worth fifty of you." "You let me down!" Cyril snarled.
"Lad is too white and clean and square to hurt anything that can't hit back," continued the Master.

"And you are not.

That's the difference between you.

One of the several million differences,--all of them in Lad's favor.

When a child begins life by being cruel to dumb animals, it's a pretty bad sign for the way he's due to treat his fellow-humans in later years,--if ever any of them are at his mercy.