The Boy in the Book

THE BOY IN THE BOOK.
By Barry Pain.
He was a boy in real life, and his name was Jim, and he read about a boy in a book whose name was Lionel: and the more he read about Lionel the more he wanted to be like Lionel, and wished that he had been christened Lionel—for Lionel was a hero, and did things by nature without previous practice.
But Jim's name was Jim, which was bad; and when he went to school they called him, for no particular reason, Cough-drop, which was worse. Nobody had ever called Lionel by any nickname; they would not have dared; he was too splendid. So Jim resented being called Cough-drop. This seemed to give everybody much pleasure, and they continued to call him Cough-drop, also The Jujube, and likewise—when they had time for it—Hundreds-and-Thousands. Jim began to wonder what Lionel would have done under the circumstances. But then Lionel's circumstances were always made to order, and fitted him beautifully; Jim's circumstances were the kind that boys' fate keeps in stock, and in places they pinched him badly.
The athletic sports came on. Lionel, as Jim well remembered, had gone in for athletic sports. Lionel had refused, with his careless laugh, to say whether he

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