'ot. You get him away!"

Meanwhile the Englishman's ire was gradually rising. He was past
the stage of considering whether it was worth while to have a fight
over a factory girl in a shilling dancing saloon, and the desire
for battle blazed up in his eyes. He turned and confronted Nugget.

"You go about your business," he said, dropping all the laboured
politeness out of his tones. "If she likes to dance--"

He got no further. A shrill whistle rang through the room; a voice
shouted, "Don't 'it 'im; 'ook 'im!" His arms were seized from behind
and pinioned to his sides. The lights were turned out. Somebody in
front hit him a terrific crack in the eye at the same moment that
someone else administered a violent kick from the rear. He was
propelled by an invisible force to the head of the stairs, and
then--whizz! down he went in one prodigious leap, clear from the
top to the first landing.

Here, in pitch-darkness, he grappled one of his assailants. For
a few seconds they swayed and struggled, and then rolled down the
rest of the stairs, over and over each other, grappling and clawing,
each trying to tear the other's shirt off. When they rolled into
the street, Carew discovered that he had hold of Charlie Gordon.

They sat up and looked at each other. Then they made a simultaneous
rush for the stairs, but the street door was slammed in their faces.
They kicked it violently, but without result, except that a mob of
faces looked out of the first-floor window and hooted, and a bucket
of water was emptied over them. A crowd collected as if by magic,