his face fearfully contorted with grins that were a silent equivalent of whoops of delight. And it was an interpretative dance. It expressed liberation from drudgery and the dull commonplace. It welcomed rhythmically a life of adventure, in which a boy’s natural propensity to lie should be not only unchecked but encouraged—that should give him, daily, games to play, hidings to seek, simple elders to hoodwink and masquerades to wear. He danced it, in his shirt sleeves, waving his coat—and in his shirt tails waving coat and trousers. It stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and he darted into the bathroom to be ready in case he should be called upon.
He was clothed and sober—rocking himself to an ecstatic croon in one of the Antwerp’s bedroom rockers—when he heard a thudded report in the hall. It sounded to him as if two books had been clapped together. He sat listening.
Babbing came in. “Get out of here, boy. What have you done with that uniform? Put
