being in the soup once more, Comrade Jackson. We can only sit tight and
look on.'

The crowd was becoming more threatening every minute. A group of young
men of the loafer class who stood near Mike were especially fertile in
comment. Psmith's eyes were on the speaker; but Mike was watching this
group closely. Suddenly he saw one of them, a thick-set youth wearing a
cloth cap and no collar, stoop.

When he rose again there was a stone in his hand.

The sight acted on Mike like a spur. Vague rage against nobody in
particular had been simmering in him for half an hour. Now it
concentrated itself on the cloth-capped one.

Mr Waller paused momentarily before renewing his harangue. The man in
the cloth cap raised his hand. There was a swirl in the crowd, and the
first thing that Psmith saw as he turned was Mike seizing the would-be
marksman round the neck and hurling him to the ground, after the manner
of a forward at football tackling an opponent during a line-out from
touch.

There is one thing which will always distract the attention of a crowd
from any speaker, and that is a dispute between two of its units. Mr
Waller's views on temperance were forgotten in an instant. The audience
surged round Mike and his opponent.

The latter had scrambled to his feet now, and was looking round for his
assailant.